The recovery is there but to return to pre-crisis levels, the road is very long, and the aim will require a considerable effort for the companies, called to adapt structures and strategies for developing new models of international competitiveness. This is what is come out from last seminar of forecasts on furniture market in Italy and around the world organized in Milan by Csil (Centre for Industrial Studies).
According to statistics from the two Csil’s reports “World Furniture Outlook 2011” and “Forecast Report on the furniture sector in Italy in 2011”, next year, at macroeconomic level, the world economy should continue to grow although at lower rates than 2010, with the persistence of a significant gap between the developing countries (including China and Asia, the Middle East, South America) and developed nations, where the slow process of overcoming of the critical phase will be still accompanied by the fall in the number of employees. Italy is no different in this picture except for the continued existence of a complicating recovery process that will see an increase in the Gdp go from +1.1 per cent estimated in 2010 to +0.8 per cent end of 2011, with deceleration in exports (+4.5 percent in 2011 against 7.9 percent this year).
Forecasts for the furniture industry in Italy in 2011 indicate a slight recovery in production of furniture in 2010 (+1.5 percent over the previous year at constant prices) and 0.9 percent in 2011 after two years of decline; +1.4 percent of domestic consumption at constant prices, thanks either to government incentives for the purchase of kitchen, or from sectoral inflation almost zero, besides the return to the purchasing with consumer credit, while exports grow by 3.7 per cent, with the return in the foreground of U.S. market. Strategic is the capacity of the distribution sector to acquire new communication tools for customers.
Worldwide, countries at the head in the list of furniture consumptions are Asia and the Pacific area, followed by the Middle East and Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and Russia, South America, North America and Western Europe.
