China, Turkey Dominating Iran Furniture Market
China, Turkey Dominating Iran Furniture Market
Head of Carpenters and Furniture Manufacturers Union of Iran says 60% of the people in the country cannot afford to buy furniture, admitting that China and Turkey are dominating Iran’s furniture market.

TEHRAN (Iran News) –Head of Carpenters and Furniture Manufacturers Union of Iran says 60% of the people in the country cannot afford to buy furniture, admitting that China and Turkey are dominating Iran’s furniture market.

Speaking to ILNA, Alireza Abbasi said that in the past, people could buy a suitable and comfortable set of furniture with a price between 10 to 15 million tomans but today due to the livelihood problems and rise in prices, 60% of the middle class people of the society, namely workers and clerk, have excluded the furniture from their list of their shoppings.

He admitted that currently furniture business in the country does not feel well and struggling, and around 10% of the occupation is busy in the furniture industry.

Abbasi reiterated that middlemen and intermediary companies have been placed between the final products producers and suppliers of raw materials, and for this reason the raw materials are supplied to the real consumers with higher prices.

He noted that furniture manufacturing workshops are working with 40% of their capacities and there are signs that people prefer to repair their old furniture rather than purchasing new ones and the price for repairing the furniture is on the rise and this has also created some problems for this business because some people even change their minds for repairing and they throw away their furniture or get along with them.

Abbasi reiterated that recession dominates this industry and shutdown of furniture production units has turned into a normal act in recent days, and this is a big threat for this industry because considerable amount of human resources is busy in this industry.

Pointing to the ban on imports of raw materials for furniture production, he said that the ban has caused some people to monopolize distribution of raw materials of this industry and they can easily push this market towards and direction they like.

On the ban on cutting the trees in Iranian woods, he said that furniture wood is imported and currently beech wood is sold in the market for 34m tomans per meter.

On the amount of furniture exports, Abbasi said that exports of furniture stand around $70m and it is expected this figure to hit $1b, adding that Iranian furniture is exported to Iraq, Pakistan, Georgia, Armenia and Oman but currently China and Turkey dominate Iran’s furniture market because the final price of their products is very cheap.