May 19, 2005. /Lesprom Network/. The forestry ministry issued a statement that the Chinese Government admitted to have imported and accommodated hundreds of cubic meters of illegal "Merbau" timber from Indonesia before 2003. But after 2003, China imported illegal timber from Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.The total volume of illegal timber smuggled to China, according to a press release from the forest ministry, reached 300,000 cubic meters per month, especially that the wood-processing industry in that country is on rise and consequently needs a great deal of raw materials. In 2004, the import of "Merbau" logs from Malaysia and Papua New Guinea reached over 894,000 cubic meters on which SGS data indicated that in the last nine years Papua New Guinea was known to have drastically reduced the export of logs. A decline in the export of Merbau logs by PNG, according to SGS data, was the result of that country's shift to sawn timber exports. China was even reported to have stopped importing illegal logs from Indonesia since 2003, based on SGS data there is a strong indication that the illegal logs smuggled to that country came from Papua province in Indonesia