PHL furniture exporters turn to domestic market

Furniture exporters are changing their marketing tack by focusing on the domestic market and banking on the boom in property development and the growing tourism industry in anticipation of flat growth from sales overseas.

 

Furniture makers in Cebu, Manila, and Pampanga are working closely with hotel and property developers on how to raise billions of peso in domestic revenues, said Myrna Bituin, Philippine Exporters Confederation (PhilExports) trustee for the furniture sector.

 

"Starting last year, we have been meeting with them. They come to the shows, they have been going around visiting factories that they believe can deliver the furniture," Bituin noted.

 

"… I think it will be a 50-percent growth,” Bituin noted in a statement. “Look... from Luzon, Visayas to Mindanao how many hotels are being built," she said.

 

Most of the hotels and condominium developers import furniture from China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, according to PhilExports.

 

Furniture makers should always be ahead in adopting the latest technology , trends, and design to capture domestic market, Bituin urged. 

 

But the demand from domestic buyers could not make up for unrealized sales in foreign markets, because only a few companies could really compete.

 

PhilExports consider Executive Order 23, implemented in 2011 to stop logging in national and residual forests as a major reason for the inability of furniture makers to meet the demand particularly from abroad.

 

The big buyers of Philippine furniture remain the European Union, the United States, and the Middle East.

 

For exporters to survive, thrive, and compete, the government must make it easier to import wood and other raw materials, said Bituin. — VS, GMA News