Furniture Fair offers home comforts

 

 

Processing wooden furniture for export at a Nam Dinh-based company. The four day Viet Nam Furniture and Home Furnishing Fair opened in HCM City yesterday, displaying wooden products, fine arts and interior decor. — VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam

HCM CITY (VNS)— The Viet Nam Furniture and Home Furnishing Fair aiming to attract more domestic customers is being held in HCM City's Tan Binh Exhibition and Convention Centre from November 8-11.

Organised by the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association (HAWA) of HCM City, the fair features more than 300 booths displaying products from 84 local companies involved in wood processing, fine arts and interior decoration.

Products on display include indoor and outdoor furniture, curtains, fabrics, flooring materials, kitchen equipment, lights, picture frames, porcelain and pottery.

Le Van Khoa, deputy director of the HCM City Department of Industry and Trade, said that Viet Nam was a promising market for furniture and other wooden products because of its population of 90 million and rising income levels.

Viet Nam, with exports of about US$4 billion a year, has been the largest furniture exporter in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

However, its products remained unpopular at home, opening the door for an influx of imported products, Khoa said.

The lower volume of purchases of local wooden products was due to the lack of large distributors and the absence of ties between manufacturers and distributors, said Nguyen Chien Thang, HAWA chairman.

Locally made furniture only accounts for 20 per cent of the domestic market, while the remainder is from foreign markets, mainly from China. — VNS