Ngoc Hung
Foreign guests look at Vietnamese wooden products at Vietnam International Furniture and Home Accessories Fair - VIFA 2014 in HCMC in March - Photo: Uyen Vien
Figures released by HAWA at a seminar in HCMC last week showed each household in Vietnam spends VND6 million (less than US$300) buying wooden products a year and up to 80% of these products are made by foreign-invested enterprises in this market.
HAWA explained that the local wood industry has developed dramatically with high export revenues but local firms mainly outsource and semi-process wooden products due to their small-scale production. This is the reason why their profit and added value remain modest.
Doan Anh Tuan, director of business development for small- and medium-scaled enterprises (SME) at Vietnam Prosperity Bank (VP Bank), said SMEs account for 90% of the nearly 3,000 companies operating in the wood processing sector in Vietnam.
Foreign-invested firms make up only 10% of the total number but contribute 35% of the country’s wooden goods export turnover, Tuan said at the seminar on Vietnam’s economy and prospects for the local woodworking industry in 2014.
According to a survey of the World Bank (WB), most enterprises in the wood processing industry are household businesses with small-scale production and capital. Therefore, they are easily affected by market changes and macro-economic factors. Labor productivity at these firms is low as each Vietnamese worker can make 1.9 chairs a day, much lower than China’s 4.5 chairs.
According to HAWA, Vietnam is now the top wooden products exporter in the ASEAN region, second in Asia and sixth in the world in terms of export revenue. The country has exported wooden products to 120 markets, including Japan and those in Europe and North America.
However, the local sector has to import 80% of material needs.
Đăng ký: VietNam News