Furniture industry told to improve quality
Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post, Semarang
The local furniture industry must improve its quality to compete with products from China and Vietnam, experts say.
Speaking at a seminar on resurrecting Central Java's furniture industry, Agus P. Djailani of the International Finance Corporation's Program for Eastern Indonesia SME Assistance (IFC PENAS) said there had been no improvement in the quality of Indonesia's furniture over the last five years.
He said many buyers complained about the poor quality of exported products, adding that in each container of exported furniture, about 20 percent of the items failed to meet the requested standards.
"Buyer usually still tolerate about 2 percent of defective products in a container," said Agus the export linkages manager at IFC-PENAS with a background in determining furniture quality.
He said that in Jepara, the center of Central Java's furniture industry, the quality of teak wood was poor.
"They're using white teak wood (young, low quality) and the precision is not good. This makes it hard for our furniture products to compete with products from China and Vietnam," he said.
The seminar was jointly organized by The Center for Furniture Development of Central Java (CEFED) and IFC PENAS in Semarang on Tuesday.
From 1998 to 2000, the Jepara furniture industry experienced a boom, but since that time the quality has decreased and so has business.
"Furniture businessmen usually do not understand the need to maintain and improve quality," Agus said.
A consultant to the furniture industry, Ed Salatka, said China was currently the main player in the furniture industry, followed by Vietnam.
He said China controlled 24 percent of wood imports for bedrooms to the U.S. in 2000, and that rose to 29 percent in 2001, 40 percent in 2002 and 48 percent in 2003.
"Indonesia can't compete against China," Salatka said.
Italian businessman Bruno Camarin said Indonesia could not compete with China and Vietnam in mass producing furniture. In Indonesia, he said, factories produce complete furniture products.
"In comparison, we don't do it (produce completed products) in Italy. There, a factory only produces several parts of a piece of furniture, other factories make other parts. These parts are then assembled into a complete product. This accelerates the mass production process," he said.
Another perceived weakness of Indonesia's furniture industry is the lack of skill in working with woods other than teak and mahogany, while the market wants products from other types of woods.
Indonesian craftspeople also find it hard to switch to modern tools that help improve the precision and speed of the work.
"By using modern equipment they could minimize the complaints. It's better to buy modern tools than to pay claims to buyers," Agus said.
He urged Indonesian businesspeople to seek out new markets for their furniture products.
"We could find markets for our handmade products, like in Europe. But it seems like we're trapped in this competition with China and Vietnam," he said.