China’s furniture industry has developed rapidly in the past 30 years. The large-scale furniture enterprises have been mainly concentrated in Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Sichuan and Shandong. Five furniture manufacturing areas of Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Circum-Bohai Sea Region, Western Region and Northern Region have been formed and have respectively accounted for 50%, 15%, 10%, 10% and 5% of the total output value of the national furniture industry.

However, the number of loss-making furniture enterprises has been increasing in recent years as the domestic economy has slowed down and the industrial competitions have intensified. By the first half of 2018, the number of China’s furniture production enterprises had been increased to 6,217, but 15% of them were estimated to make loss. The profits of the whole industry in 2017 declined by about 6%.

The wooden furniture (including the solid wood furniture and wood-base panel furniture), metal furniture and furniture of other types accounted for 64%, 19% and 17% of the total output value of the national furniture industry respectively.

According to the report of China National Furniture Association, from January 2018 to July 2018, the output of China’s furniture manufacturing industry reached 435,000,000, increased by about 1%, including 144,000,000 pieces of wooden furniture, increased by 2.2%, 219,000,000 pieces of metal furniture, declined by 0.5% and 32,000,000 pieces of upholstered furniture, increased by 2.4%. according to the association, the wooden furniture manufacturers were the most profitable.

Wooden furniture has been produced in 28 provinces. From the output, the provinces and cities ranking Top 10 in the first half of 2018 were Guangdong, Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Henan and Beijing successively, and Top 3 enterprises in output were Guangdong, Zhejiang and Fujian respectively, producing up to 27,000,000, 15,700,000 and 14,500,000 pieces of furniture respectively.

Currently, China’s furniture industry is undergoing a period of some difficulties, and especially influenced by the domestic environmental protection and safety regulations, many small and medium-sized furniture enterprises are shutting down or thoroughly replacing the equipment to comply with the new regulations.

Plan for Green Development of China’s Industry (2016 – 2020) has pointed out that the idea of green development will become the guidance principle for development of the whole industry. Green manufacturing industry has become a new power of economic growth and has provide the favorable conditions for its development in the international market.

In a word, the furniture manufacturing industry is undergoing a transformation from the overcapacity, high resource consumption and simple production to high productivity and high value-added production. The future production will develop to the directions of low carbon, environmental protection and intelligence.

(Source: JJgle.com)