It was held in Milan the Seminar of market furniture outlook in Italy and in the world in 2014, edited by Csil (Centre for Industrial Studies). During the meeting Csil presented two reports, the “World Furniture Outlook 2014” and the “Report on furniture outlook in Italy from 2014 to 2016”. The focus “Smart & Fast: the city of 2020”, is proposing a new slant of study focused on forecasts for 2020 of a hundred cities with attractive growth outlooks and quality/quantity of the demand for home durable goods.
On the international scenario, against a world Gdp growth of 3.6 per cent, there is a trend to a rebalancing of the international economic order, with the lower growth in emerging markets and an improvement in the performance of the advanced ones (including the Euro area). In Italy, the market is still strongly supported by exports: in the absence of political and financial shocks, the national Gdp is estimated to grow again as early as next year (more than 0.8 per cent in real terms), and then accelerate to 1.5 percent more in the next two years, seeing only in 2015 and 2016 a recovery in domestic consumption.
World consumption of furniture valued at production prices is approximately 420 billion U.S. dollars, with a tendency to growth in emerging markets compared to the stagnation in place in Western Europe. The world’s largest importers are the United States, Germany, France and the UK, while China belongs to the highest podium between exporters followed by Germany, Italy and Poland. In Italy year 2013 is closing with a domestic market again in decline, but positive signs in recent months came from the “bonus for furniture”; exports to non-EU countries recorded an increase of over 10 percent, compared to a decrease in the total turnover at around 12 percent at constant prices in 2012-2013. The year 2014, according to Csil, looks like another year of uncertainty in which the export − even towards EU countries − confirms its role as the center of gravity of the market with an estimated increase of three percent at constant prices. In a context of stability of the domestic market, an increase of production value by 2 per cent is estimated, with further improvement expected in 2016.
