Yogyakarta furniture exports down 40 percent

The current economic turmoil in Europe and US has had a big impact on Yogyakarta’s wood furniture exports, which are down 40 percent this year, an industry association chief says.

“That is why we are now targeting alternative countries as new markets,” Indonesian Furniture Producer Association (Asmindo) chief Yuli Sugianto said Tuesday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Yuli added that Asmindo was now preparing to target the United Arab Emirates, India and African countries, among others.

The association had also been considering a strategy to improve the local market.

The head of foreign trade at Yogyakarta administration, Riyadi, acknowledged that the volume of wooden furniture exports had been dropping consistently over the past two years.

In 2009, the administration recorded a wooden furniture exports worth US$18.6 million. This dropped to $18.1 million in 2010, and up to April this year the exports had reached only $4.8 million.