Furniture industry targets 10% annual sales growth

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine furniture sector targets to achieve a sales growth of at least 10 percent every year, by sustainably producing sophisticated, sturdy and environment-friendly products.

Through the efforts of the Chamber of Furniture Industries of the Philippines (CFIP) and the Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation (CFIF), the industry is pursuing a long-term strategy to become a global design innovate or center/hub for products using sustainable materials with a robust domestic and international markets and a competitive labor force by 2030.

In its roadmap, the sector assumes that the United States (US) market will continue growing positively in the next five years.

On the other hand, the sector’s target markets are the medium and high-end segments of the traditional markets such as North America, Europe, Middle East and Japan; Asia specifically Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh, Bangkok and Singapore; and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

Towards these goals, the sector intends to establish sustainable and environmentally- friendly raw materials and create supply hubs for semi-processed and raw materials from local and imported sources.

Philippine furniture is made using the finest sustainably-sourced raw materials such as hard wood, buri, rattan, bamboo, metal and other indigenous products.

Apart from product development, the industry shall focus its programs on other key development factors, including marketing, capacity building and advocacy.

It targets to make the Philippine furniture the best in Asia, to sell to traditional markets and simplify marketing strategy to align furniture design to customer needs in “local, glocal and global markets.”

To build capacity, the sector seeks to have a sustainable supply of raw materials, provide readily available skilled manpower to the industry; and to ensure availability of advanced and cost-effective machineries/equipment and production processes.

Meanwhile, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI-7) regional director Asteria Caberte said that Cebu in particular, is likely to post more than the national target in furniture exports performance, saying "Cebu has always been the leader in the furniture trade [both exports and domestic.

Although growth is apparent for the long been battered furniture sector, specifically this year, Caberte urged players to strengthen major market like United States and Japan, while focusing efforts to develop new products.

At the same time, continue to captivate the local market, as it has been the savior of the industry in the recent years. (FREEMAN)