FURNITURE making has come up fast in recent years. The industry almost entirely meets the domestic demand. Unlike in the past when furniture makers used to be small scale individual producers operating with limited capacities in small markets, nowadays it has become a big industry in the country. There are to be found large scale regular producers of furniture for the local market.
They are producing and marketing to a wide group of clientele furniture of varied qualities to meet different tastes. Furniture produced here are not only satisfying local needs but these have also found a share, minimal though, of export market. The foreign market for Bangladeshi furniture is a very limited one at present. But there is potential for Bangladesh to export in a much bigger way and take a larger share of this market.
At present, a huge number of members of the workforce in Bangladesh remain unemployed. But a large number of the unemployed can be trained up to find employment in furniture making industries. The government has a role to play in this regard by establishing and running training centres such as polytechnics or ones exclusively designed to teach and train on carpentry. Many of the raw materials used by the furniture industry are imported. These imported products are steel frames, specialised plastic sheets, wood substitutes, among others. Not only the imported materials are necessary to produce furniture of attractive new designs and new looks, the same are also playing a role in helping reduce felling of timber trees and to some extent keeping deforestation activities under some degree of check in line with the country’s sustainable development goals. But the costs of the imported raw materials for the furniture industry are on the higher side. The import and other duties on these products increase the cost of production for the furniture industry. If these duties and taxes are scaled down, the furniture makers would be in a position to competitively expand business for the markets both at home and abroad.
It has estimated that the furniture industry has the prospect of employing nearly 10 million people on a sustainable basis in the long run provided supportive governmental policies are adopted and maintained. There has been a growing effective demand for attractive furniture in the domestic market. Based on this demand attractive furniture that are being made are also attracting buyers in foreign markets. Based on the experience of an exclusively furniture-making large-scale company, some new companies have established their furniture-making wings in a big way. There are thus signs that the industry will flourish and add notably to the gross domestic product (GDP) while also earning substantial amounts of foreign currencies for the country, provided it is backed by prudent policy support.
