Hanoi (VNA) – The world’s wooden interior décormarket is predicted to grow 3.5 percent in 2018 and continue expanding,bringing chances for Vietnamese businesses to raise exports of the products.

If Vietnamese businesses optimise the material sources they have and make thebest use of trade promotion activities, their export earnings can surpass 8billion USD.

According to Huynh Van Hanh, Vice President of theHandicraft and Wood Industry Association of Ho Chi Minh City, in the past 15years, the wood industry has maintained the growth rate of 8-15 percent a yeardespite world economic fluctuation.

The biggest issue of the wood processing enterprisesin Vietnam is they are focusing on a market section with low added value,mostly concentrating on outsourcing for foreign clients.

To further develop the domestic wood sector, the businessesshould pay attention to a higher target of selling abroad the whole space ofhigh-end interior décor instead of doing outwork and selling separate products.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam Timber and Forest ProductAssociation (VIFORES) asserted that it is necessary to make full use ofdomestic material sources to create a breakthrough for the sector.

Statistics showed that Vietnam has more than 3 millionhectares of acacia with an output of 150 cubic metres of wood in one hectareper year. If exploiting only a half of the total area, Vietnam will have 22.5million cubic metres of wood a year, meeting the material demand of the wholesector for both domestic and foreign markets.

Especially, acacia wood is much cheaper than importedwood, which will help facilitate a closed production chain for made-in-Vietnamwooden products.

Along with optimizing material sources, tradepromotion activities should also be strengthened to help domestic increasesales.

Hanh said that currently, trade fairs and exhibitionsare considered the most economic and effective method of promotion. Therefore,in 2018, HAWA has informed its members of a number of events abroad and supportthem in joining the events to seek partners and broaden markets.

However, Hanh said that exhibitions in the countryhave drawn an increasing number of enterprises, especially small ones, as theywould know the number of deals they secure immediately.

He noted that the Vietnam International Furniture and Home Accessories Fair (VIFAExpo) 2018 attracted 4,528 firms, while the 2017 event gathered only 2,000.Transactions at the event also increased.

Besides traditional trade promotion, digital marketingis popular in many countries such as the US, Germany, Italy and China. However,it is hard to find Vietnamese wooden décor firms on the Internet as the Vietnamesefirms have yet to efficiently exploit this method. -VNA