Cebu strives to become furniture destination in Asia

Determined to become the furniture destination in Asia, Cebu has been firming up its reputation for great design and craftsmanship while boldly reshaping itself for new markets and, in these times, cooling economies.

There’s the serious competition posed by China and Malaysia, and with increasing aggressiveness, also Vietnam, with their more abundant raw materials and cheaper labor costs, but Cebu is undaunted.

Recently, the Cebu International Furniture & Furnishings Exhibition held its 13th annual run, and sporting this year a new name "Cebu X"–for excellence, experience, excitement and the X factor, according to the organizers–at the huge convention center of the Waterfront Cebu City.

"Over the years we have aspired, through constant and consistent improvement, to make our annual furniture and furnishings show the premier stop and must-see show in the Asian chain of shows," said Ligaya C. Quisumbing, president of the Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation, organizers of the exhibition.

Cebu reinforced this ambition with encouraging figures. This year the exhibition attracted 1,050 trade buyers coming from 60 countries, a rally from 800 last year when the global market climate for the industry registered an all-time low. Sales likewise improved, from $20.35 million last year to $52 million on the last day of the exhibit this year.

"The attendance went beyond our expectations, despite dire predictions of a low turn-out," said Ruby B. Salutan, CFIF executive director.

A total of 160 exhibitors–mostly from Cebu, the rest coming from Manila, Bacolod, Iloilo, Pampanga and Davao–participated in the show, showcasing furniture, furnishings and accessories categorized according to style–classic, contemporary, and avant-garde–using traditional materials like rattan, wicker, bamboo, wrought iron, wood and buri, and non-traditional materials like fossilized stones, animal bones, fish skins, parchment, coco shell, and combinations thereof.

"We’ve come a long way," said Corito Escario-Yu, president of the Designers Guild Philippines (DGP), the training and design development arm of the CFIF. "There’s lots more to see and the designs that are coming out are bolder, more adventurous."

Next to Japan, Escario-Yu said, the Philippines sets the trends in furniture design in Asia. In terms of value-added pieces, however, "our materials are more varied and interesting" than those in Japan, which has based its furniture industry mainly on wood.

And while countries like China and Indonesia are outpacing the country in terms of mass production, coupled with cheaper labor costs, the Philippines, Escario-Yu said, has firmed up its own niche: excellent design.

"We’ve been attracting world attention because of design," said Escario-Yu. "Our biggest success, I think, is that that we have brought up ethnic and indigenous materials to a modern, contemporary level and yet still distinctly our own. When you see it in Europe or in the US, you can tell at a glance that this piece of furniture or furniture complement is made in Cebu."

The US is the biggest market for Cebu’s (and the country’s) furniture exports, followed by Japan, Germany, Spain and France. A growing market is the Middle East whose preferences in furniture style run to the ornate classic that Cebu manufacturers have mastered with great skill.

In 2001 Cebu’s furniture export reached $267.5, an almost 22% increase from the previous year. Furniture made of wood and rattan, the traditional materials, and inlaid stone, for which Cebu is famous, bring in the bulk of export revenues. Ironically, rattan (or cane) which fueled Cebu’s reputation as a furniture maker in high-end stores in the US, Cebu has increasingly been importing from Indonesia. Wood, which Cebu has a dearth of, is imported from New Zealand and Canada.

"The dearth of materials has actually stimulated us to keep on evolving and be more creative," said Gus Palao of Design Ventures, one of the exhibitors in Cebu X and chair of the promotions committee. "In a way, it was survival, and survival elicited ingenuity, which is the essense of furniture design."

Cebu furniture exports, which continue to cater to high-end markets, seem to be surviving better than the country’s furniture export as a whole. Over 70 percent of Philippine furniture exports last year originated in Cebu. As of 2001 there are 306 furniture exporting firms on the island, directly employing 45,000 and indirectly 80,000 people. Furniture is No. 4 in the top 10 export commodities in Cebu, the foremost being electronics and electrical equipment.

What’s also significant about the yearly exhibit of the CFIF is the stimulus it gives to young furniture designers in Cebu through the much-coveted Estilo Awards given by the DGP.

"We want designers to challenge themselves to the max, to come out with new ideas," said Escario-Yu. The winners this year showed a stunning creativeness with materials such as nylon fishnets, steel washers mixed with resin, "distressed" abaca. (The corresponding award for participants in the show is called Mugna, meaning"to create" in Cebuano.)

DGP also conducts workshops and seminars for draftsmen to professionalize their ranks, the idea also being to convince owners to "consider royalties for their designers," according to Escario-Yu.

Founded in 1994 by a group of friends, originally to do special work for the furniture exhibition, DGP is made up of seven furniture manufacturers who’ve had professional training in furniture design, among them Escario-Yu, Debbie Palao, Ramon Castellanos (a Spaniard from the Royal Academy of Sweden), Luisa Robinson, Rene Ybanez, Kenneth Cobonpue and Bernice Streegan-Montenegro.

Ironically, there’s no school in Cebu offering industrial design or courses related to furniture design. "Since 1996 we’ve been talking with Cebu colleges and universities about supporting Cebu’s important industry through relevant courses in their schools that will provide the needed talent and skills," said Debbie Palao, managing director of Design Ventures and one of the DGP founders.

DGP has linked recently with the Don Bosco Technological Center in Cebu City. It is building an international database and a website to link up with other designers throughout the world. "We are also trying to set up an exchange program through CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) funding," said Palao.

The furniture industry in Cebu has indeed come a long way since 1974 when a small group of furniture manufacturers banded together to serve as the collective voice of the Cebu furniture industry. The group began as the Cebu chapter of the Chamber of Furniture Industries of the Philippines (CFIP), based in Manila; in 1994 it broke away from the Manila group and assumed the nature of a foundation.

Its annual furniture show, now called Cebu X, is "a bold step for us," according to CFIF president Ligaya Quisumbing. "It reinforces Cebu’s position as a serious and important contributor to the world furniture and furnishings market."