To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs why the Burmese state company Myanmar Timber Enterprise is not included in Annex IV (List of Burmese state-owned enterprises referred to in article 8(a)) of the EU Common Position on Burma. (101570)

Article 5.5(a) and (b) of the EU Common Position on Burma refers to a list of state-owned companies subject to financial sanctions. This list appears in Annex II of the Common Position. The list is agreed within the EU by consensus. No consensus has been reached on adding Myanmar Timber Enterprises to the list.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the Government are providing diplomatic support to the efforts of other EU member states to add Myanmar Timber Enterprise to the EU list of Burmese state-owned companies during the review of the EU Common Position in April 2007. (101571)

The UK will continue to work for the strongest achievable targeted measures in the EU Common Position, which is adopted by unanimity, and will remain in close contact with EU partners to establish which State-owned enterprises should be included on the list of companies subject to sanctions under the Common Position.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether the Government are providing diplomatic support to the efforts of other EU member states to decrease imports of Burmese timber into the EU. (101572)

The UK supports the EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan which envisages Voluntary Partnership Agreements with individual countries to promote trade in legally produced timber. Burma is not a FLEGT Partner Country and its timber exports are therefore not promoted under this scheme. In the UK, the Government maintains a long-standing policy of discouraging British companies from trading with Burma.