At the beginning of this month, an Indonesian online media wrote about the potential of rattan furniture products is big on the international market. As weknow, Indonesia is the largest producer in the world and has several types of rattan which are very commercial to be used as material for rattan furniture production.
According to Deputy General Fair of the Indonesian Rattan Entrepreneurs Association Julius Hoesan, rattan industry currently only uses about five to 10 percent of Indonesia’s sustainable rattan resource potential. Meanwhile, the potential for sustainable rattan in Indonesia is 630 thousand tons per year. So there is still a lot of rattan material that is ready to use but has not been used by the industry.
With this data, Indonesia still has the potential of a large rattan industry that can be used commercially, especially increasing rattan furniture and craft export. It is expected that with this abundant amount of rattan raw material, it can encourage local industries to process commodities and get added value as export goods.
The export movement of the Indonesian furniture industry in the past three years shows a trend that tends to stagnate, which reached $ 1.71 billion in 2015, $ 1.61 billion in 2016, and $ 1.63 billion in 2017.
Meanwhile, based on data from the Center for Industrial Studies (CSIL), world furniture trade was valued at $ 130 billion in 2015, $ 131 billion in 2016, and $ 138 billion in 2017.
From these data, it can be seen that Indonesia’s role in global furniture exports is still relatively small compared to the existing raw materials potential. This is a great opportunity for Indonesia to increase exports while continuing to supply the local market.
The local market also has the potential to produce rattan furniture and other products. Rattan products are produced by entrepreneurs in several regions, such as Cirebon in West Java, Sukoharojo in Central Java, and Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara.
–sh
