Promising prospect for Thai furniture exports

BANGKOK, March 7 (TNA) - Thailand's furniture exports have promising prospect in the coming years, especially in neighboring Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam in the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), known as the CLMV group. Thai Commerce Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong spoke of the bright prospect of Thai furniture exports on Wednesday while inaugurating the “Thailand International Furniture Expo 2018”, being held at the IMPACT Trade and Exhibition Center in Muang Thong Thani on the outskirts of Bangkok during March 7-11 under the theme of "The signature of Living”. Sontirat acknowledged that Thailand has earned about 37 billion baht annually from furniture exports alone and it is expected that the country's exports of furniture products should further grow in the coming years, with the growth rate in 2018 alone likely to stand at 5 per cent year-on-year on average, worth about 1.13 billion US dollars. Sontirat pointed out that Thailand's furniture exports now have more promising prospect in the CLMV group with their growth rate likely to stand as high as 15 per cent year-on-year in the four countries in 2018, thanks to the high economic growth rates of the neighboring countries and high quality of Thai furniture products with reasonable prices. According to the minister, major importing countries of Thai furniture products, however, include the United States, Japan and Europe, accouting for about 90 per cent of Thai furniture exports annually. The minister said the Thai furniture industry has maintained its competitiveness on the world market despite such rival countries as Malaysia, China and Vietnam, where there are similar raw materials with Thailand. (TNA)