Data show that in the first four months of this year, imports of tropical wooden furniture from Malaysia by the 27 EU countries and the United Kingdom decreased by 15% to 37,000 tons; however, imports of wooden furniture from Indonesia increased by 18% to 42,000 tons. In addition, as Brazil is also developing domestic furniture exports recently, its furniture exports to the EU and the UK reached 22,000 tons, an increase of 8%.
In the fourth month of this year, imports of wooden furniture from the EU-27 and the United Kingdom have shown a downward trend, falling by 10% to 950,000 tons. The reason is that imports from several major supplying countries have declined.
Vietnam's wooden furniture exports to the EU-27 and the UK remained stable at 82,000 tonnes in April this year. Supply from India, Thailand and Singapore fell a lot. India fell by 16% to 35,000 tons; Thailand fell by 39% to 3,000 tons; Singapore saw the largest decline, only exporting 1,000 tons, down 53%.
In April 2022, my country's tropical furniture exports to the EU-27 and the UK fell by 8% to 460,000 tons; the rest of the tropical regions fell by 3% to 230,000 tons.
In terms of furniture supply in Europe, according to data from Eurostat, although the overall furniture production of the 27 EU countries has returned to the level before the epidemic at the end of last year, many European countries, including Germany, France, Sweden and Romania, have Production remains below epidemic levels.
Before the epidemic, the imports of wooden furniture from the 27 EU countries and the United Kingdom have maintained a steady annual growth rate of 6%. Logistics-related problems caused by the outbreak have slowed import growth to 3%; however, it increased at a rate of over 20% last year. Therefore, for this year's European demand forecast for wooden furniture, the Milan Furniture Institute believes that it will continue to maintain a good growth.
In reality, however, global inflation is causing the European economy to enter a period of markedly slow growth. Input production of lumber and other raw materials has been drastically reduced, wharf and railway strikes have brought serious logistical problems, and shortages of personnel and electricity have also affected production and supply.
Although the furniture industry in Europe has experienced a serious supply and demand imbalance in the past two years, in addition to restricting production and supply, the growing inflationary pressure is expected to suppress the demand for furniture in Europe in the second half of this year.