ASAHIKAWA (Kyodo) -- Manufacturers of high-end furniture in and around Asahikawa in Hokkaido are planning to advance to China to expand their sales to rich people, at a time when the Japanese furniture industry is losing ground in the face of mass-produced cheap Chinese products.
According to industrial statistics from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, shipments of domestically produced furniture and accessories, which peaked in 1991 with about 4.15 trillion yen in value, plunged more than half to some 1.88 trillion yen in 2008. Chinese products have sharply grabbed huge shares in the domestic market.
In the meantime, members of the Asahikawa Furniture Industrial Cooperative Society are calling for their advance to China to fight the surge of cheap Chinese products.
Several members of the society are scheduled to exhibit their products at an international furniture fair to be held in China shortly. "We would like to promote our high-quality products to the wealthy class," said Yoshimasa Sugimoto, the society's executive director.
The Asahikawa Industrial Arts Center, which is extending technological assistance to the wood industry, said there are more than 200 furniture and joinery producers in and around Asahikawa, and such a concentration is nationally rare.
In other producing areas, the division of labor is in progress, but in Asahikawa, there are many integrated producers, enabling them to respond to various orders and repairs.
Minoru Nagahara, 75, chairman of Conde House Co. in the central Hokkaido city which has led the cooperative society since his firm's establishment in 1968, said China and other Asian countries are going to become important markets.
"The age of mass production and consumption has ended. We are trying to produce simple, high-quality furniture which can be used for 100 years. We are also stepping up repair and recovery work," he said.
In fact, there are standard products whose sales have increased 50 percent in a year. Nagahara said, "We are now confident that universal and fashionably designed products can be sold."
Sales from repair work have also increased 20 percent over a period of five years.
Other areas in Japan are also trying to advance to China. The International Development Association of the Furniture Industry of Japan in Tokyo will participate for the first time in the China International Furniture Exhibition to be held in Dalian, Liaoning Province, in June.
Seven companies in Gifu, Aichi, Tokushima and Kagawa prefectures will display their products at the fair. "It is unknown whether they can sell. We would like to wait and see," said an association official.
On the other hand, there are some manufacturers which have withdrawn from China. Those in and around Okawa in Fukuoka Prefecture took part in a fair held in Dalian several years ago, but there has been no such move since then. "European products were sold but not Japanese products," said an official concerned.
The Cooperative Association Okawa Furniture Industry is now trying to develop the domestic market by holding domestic exhibitions four times a year.
