Cebu’s furniture industry is going green to penetrate more international markets, an industry leader said.

There has been a lot of changes in paradigm for Cebu this year. Going green is one of them, said Eric Vicente Casas, president of Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation Inc. (CFIF).

Casas said companies are encouraged to create furniture pieces made of indigenous materials.

“Buyers require us to plant trees, especially the Europeans. Theres a particular system, that for every tree we cut, we plant 10 trees,” he said.

He said Pete Delantar of Natures Legacy Ex-import Inc. is doing well in the world market because of Natures-cast, the company’s line of eco-friendly products made of forest wastes including dead tree barks and fallen twigs.

Casas also noted that most international agencies provide funding to organizations, which develop environment-friendly furniture items.

CFIF is currently seeking more than a million euros funding from a European agency, said Casas.

The fund, expected roll out by the end of the year, will be used for series of design development programs which will put emphasis on the environmental sustainability such as materials and processes used.

Earlier, CFIf also sought a grant from the Export Development Council (EDC) to fund its product and material development programs, and the upgrading of the information center.

The entire project costs P7.5 million (US$180,457), said CFIF executive director Ruby Salutan.

Last year, EDC approved the request giving P4 million to CFIF, while the remaining P3.5 million will be CFIFs counterpart to the project and will be generated by the organization.

Casas said the EDC grant is expected to be released within the first quarter of this year.

“This is the least the government can do for us given the exporters woes brought about by the strengthening of the peso. In product development seminars, companies are taught how to develop products that will help them, keep up with new market trends,” he said.

To cope with the strong peso appreciation, furniture companies in Cebu have explored countries in the Middle East and Europe as new markets.

In the meantime, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) 7 Director Asteria Caberte said DTI is uniting with the export industry in employing market diversification as a key strategy to counter the downside risks of a weaker global economy.

In an economic briefing earlier this month, Caberte said only 17.1 per cent of Philippine products were exported to the US in 2007 compared to the 29.8 per cent in 2000.

Exports in Hong Kong have increase to 11.5 per cent in 2007 from five per cent in 2000, while exports in Japan have a slight difference with 14.7 per cent in 2000 and 14.5 per cent in 2007.

Source

This entry was posted on Monday, March 24th, 2008 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Furniture. Tags: Cebu, Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation Inc., Department of Trade and Industry, Design, Europe, European, Furniture, Furniture Industry, Grant, Green, Hong Kong, Japan, Middle East, Peso, products, Project, Ruby Salutan, the Company, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.