Thailand Boosts Parawood Furniture Markets New Look Design to Drive Exports

Furniture World Magazine

Thailand is preparing to present its newly designed parawood furniture to the world market in 2003 by organizing a product design development demonstration hosted by the Product Development Center, Department of Export Promotion (DEP), Ministry of Commerce. Parawood furniture makes up 70 percent of all Thai wooden furniture exports. “Between January 2001 and September 2001, Thailand exported US$ 365 million worth of wooden furniture, whereas during the same period of 2002, exports increased to US$ 418.4 million indicating that foreign buyers are confident in our parawood furniture, for its superb quality and its east-meet-west design", said Mr. Songchai Saisavetvaree, Deputy Director – General of the Department of Export Promotion, Ministry of Commerce. Mr. Songchai added, " We are focusing on product design since it will render uniqueness to the product itself and thus it can be exported to countries all over the world, not just to the United State of America, Europe and Japan. We have to study market demands in each region in order to develop products that are most suitable in terms of practicality, durability, quality and most of all design and style. This is also to add value to our parawood furniture". Parawood products derived from this project was featured at the Thailand International Furniture Fair (TIFF)2003, which was held at BITEC between March 8-9,. In addition to the TIFF 2003, those interested in parawood and other wooden furniture can visit the Thailand Furniture Mart, an export furniture center, Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. For additional information, please contact +66 2511 6020 ext 737-739 or visit www.depthai.go.th or www.thaitrade.com