Furniture makers pins high hope on U.S. market

Furniture makers pins high hope on U.S. market By Thai Hang in HCMC Despite the downbeat global outlook, and despite the possible double-dip recession stateside, Vietnamese furniture makers still increasingly rely on the U.S. market to buoy up their sales. And efforts to further penetrate the U.S. are paying off. Demand for bedroom, dinning room and living room furniture from the market with a population of over 300 million is still rising, at least for Vietnamese woodworking enterprises. They are hoping for a brighter year in 2010, although the U.S. market has for years been among major importers of Vietnamese wood products, the others being Japan and European countries. The U.S. is the biggest market for Vietnam’s wood processing industry with 2009 woodwork exports totaling US$2.7 billion. Ngo Thi Hong Thu, deputy director of Truong Thanh Corporation, a furniture supplier for the famous Wal-mart retail stores and many other retailers and distributors, told the Daily weeks ago that her company’s total furniture export to the U.S. in the first six months of the year has doubled from last year. A more favorable factor is that, according to Thu, the low labor cost still makes furniture items made in Vietnam more competitive than those from China, where the labor input is becoming costlier. “Demand also increases from other markets, but the U.S. is the leader,” Thu said. Apart from higher demand stateside, prices are also picking up. Thu revealed that as demand still ran high, her company was now more careful…