Wood-furniture: Fla press conference with first data 2013 and forecasts 2014

At the press conference for the end of the year, FederlegnoArredo today released the first data on the “furniture bonus” in Italy and its impact on the industry, as well as forecasts for 2014.
In Italy, the Wood-furniture industry occupies 370 thousand employees, 70 thousand companies, with production values ​​of more than 27 billion euro.
Speakers were the president of FederlegnoArredo Roberto Snaidero, president of Assarredo Giovanni Anzani and the general director of the federation Giovanni De Ponti.
In 2013, the industry is continuing to suffer the consequences of the economic crisis and the uncertainties arising from the problems of the Eurozone that have crippled the European consumption. The year will close again with a drop in sales for the macro wood-furniture (-3.2%), yet many closures of companies (-2400) and loss of employment (-6800). If exports continue the positive trend of the last three years (+2.4%), it is the domestic market facing the main difficulties: the apparent domestic consumption is still recording a less 7.1 per cent compared to 2012.
The situation would have been much worse if the government had not intervened in June with tax incentives for home and interior design: deductions of 50 percent (“furniture bonus”), deductions of 65 percent energy savings (Ecobonus ). A survey of the Research Center of Cosmit/FederlegnoArredo showed a recovery of domestic sales in 2014 of 4-5 percent. Thanks to this initiative were saved 3,800 jobs and a thousand companies.
The Federation, with the support of the unions associations, is proposing the government to reduce the Vat rate for the purchase of furniture for young couples and single-parent families with minor children.
“The partnership with the unions – said the president Roberto Snaidero − confirms the great social value of the initiative. Approval of “furniture bonus” was a good result. But we must do more. Above all, we must act timely and in a structural way to keep up the “backbone” of our country, which are Smes, of which our industry is an excellent example“.
In Italy the young couples account for about 10 per cent of Italian households, amounting to about 2.5 million households, and absorb more than 15 percent of furniture consumption.