Pakistan is far behind in exports of furniture compared with our neighbouring countries like China, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Iran etc — only because of supply chain obstacles, lack of modern technology and low-quality materials.
As a result, Pakistan is losing its edge in traditional, carved, solid wood furniture domestically because of its high price and in markets abroad due to poor quality and designs.
A Dubai-based company ‘Studio-Seven’, an architecture and interior designing firm recently commenced its own quality furniture-making business in Karachi to contribute its share in the $250 billion worldwide furniture demand.The company is already providing Interior Décor to clients in Dubai and Pakistan for the last 18-20 years and for that purpose it has to import quality furniture from Thailand, Malaysia, Italy and other European markets to meet the demand.
“Our customers give us their dreams and we convert these dreams into a reality,” said Rais Chohan and Mubashir Khamisa, owners of Studio-Seven in an interview with Profit magazine. Both the owners have been partners in this business for the last many years.
“We established this new (furniture) venture about two years ago in Dubai and after it succeeded, we started making these Rosewood products in Pakistan through our own skilled workers.
“ The cost of our complete Rosewood Bedroom Set is around Rs 2,200,000 (Rs 2.2 million) but it depends on the customers’ designs,” they said. There is a unique customer-based demand for this long-life furniture — and multiple generations of the customers may use it, they claimed.
Our lowest cost product is a pillow which costs around Rs 7000, they added.“Our preference is to provide quality furniture in a minimum budget to the customers,” the owners said. We have different quality buyers in Pakistan especially in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Dubai, they added.
The country’s furniture exports, which mainly comprise traditional solid wood items, have declined from $18 million in 2007 to $6 million during the last financial year, and are continuously plunging. Furniture exports stood at $2.29 million down by 9 per cent during the first half of this year from $2.50 million during the corresponding period last fiscal year.
In Pakistan, we just use Rosewood as a Pakistani material, while all other material including special quality mattresses and cloth have to be imported from abroad.
Because of such expensive material import, the cost of our product is higher compared with other brands in Pakistan, but our products are solid, long-life and will be used by many generations of the customer, they claimed.
“Studio Seven is trendsetter in Pakistan’s furniture industry till now. Unlike other brands, we have introduced quality steel work in our all products. We are giving quality components and durability. In Pakistan, we imported ‘Getha Foam (used in mattress, bedding, and couches)’ for the first time, which isn’t available in our markets and our company imports such material from Malaysia. This name Getha is symbolic and holds true to its identity proudly in the use of 100 percent natural Malaysian rubber latex.
We are providing 100 per cent Rosewood (Shisham wood) with steelwork and trying to be pioneers in this field, they said. We are designers and interior decorators aswell which is why we launched such a furniture-making business. “You can say that it is designer furniture, similar to what others are claiming in Pakistan,” they said.
Commenting on the law and order situation in Pakistan, the owners explained that it was the main hurdle in the development of such kind of businesses, but now they believe investors are coming to Pakistan to start quality businesses.
“After China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), all businesses of the country will improve and now we are gearing ourselves for an increase in demand,” they claimed. The more affluent class is importing furniture from Dubai, Europe and other countries. Now that such quality furniture is available in Pakistan they don’t need to import it from abroad.
The owners said, “We can provide a series of world’s latest designs for the local and international customers for those who want to have quality and solid wood products.” Earlier on, this wasn’t possible in Pakistan. “Few months ago, we took part in an exhibition in Lahore and received an overwhelming response and also received several orders. And we will be participating in an exhibition in Islamabad later on this year.”
Our furniture that features steel plates embossed with Islamic calligraphy and is in demand in Pakistan— we want to create an identity in this type of signature furniture and create a brand so that our company can receive orders from international markets. There is a lot of demand for quality handwork furniture in Europe, Middle East and other neighbouring countries.
The main aim of Studio Seven is to sell its products abroad.“It is very unfortunate that the government doesn’t even recognize furniture-making as an industry,” they said.
China, for example, was nowhere on the scene in the early 1990s but emerged as the 9th largest furniture exporter in 2000. It is now a top exporter with market share of about two-fifth or $94 billion. Malaysia too, grew fast to raise its furniture exports to over $1.5 billion with its companies graduating from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to original brand manufacturers (OBMs) and then to original design manufacturers (ODMs).
“Others have done this. We can do it too. For that we need the government’s support in getting easier access to technology, raw materials, trained labour and credit,” they stressed.
With regards to imports and exports, they informed us that there is still a problem in the import of foreign materials as the custom authorities have to be informed about it beforehand. Similarly export of furniture is also difficult because of the traditional customs checking at seaports etc. “Government’s taxes are not a big issue, but checking of material is the main issue and customs officials instead of checking, drill into the products to see what is in it. They (customs officials) do not use modern technologies of scanning or other facilities that don’t damage the product.
The company has selected special skilled workers in their Karachi factory and have been given training to work with latest equipment who have been selected from Karachi, Punjab and Chiniot and are experts in their work. In Pakistan, we have high quality skilled labour. “We have to develop this business in the country and it will take 4 to 5 years at least and will try to set a trend of quality furniture in Pakistan” they confidently said.
The government needs to put in place a plan to create and develop a sustainable, low cost source of wood raw materials, eradicate illegal timber trade, train designers and labour, organize single-country road shows to market local products in key export markets like the Gulf states, the US, the European Union and Japan.
Pakistan could still earn a lot of foreign exchange by creating a high-end ‘niche’ market for its traditional and ethnic furniture. “Our industry has no contact with any global brand or store, which is essential to boost exports”.
Wood furniture making mostly remains a cottage operation in Chiniot, Gujrat, Lahore, Peshawar and Karachi outside the documented economy. But a few small furniture companies in the organized sector have expanded their production by acquiring technology to produce quality, cheaper modern items — mainly for the Rs 7 billion domestic market but also for exports.
“At the moment, the furniture industry is focused more on the domestic market which is expanding very fast on the back of growing consumer spending and a booming housing and construction sector, along with a huge jump in remittances sent by the Pakistanis working abroad in the recent years,” they said. “Besides, the industry isn’t prepared to handle large export orders. We don’t have the capacity or backup… Exports will follow once we create mass production facilities,” the owners said.
Many such manufacturers, however, complain of rising cost of doing business owing to high price of electricity, low labour productivity and use of costly imported and local solid wood and alternate raw materials. This makes products expensive and uncompetitive against imported Chinese furniture in the local market.
