As many as 450 exhibitors are displaying their goods at the 18th International Furniture and Housing Accessories Fair that opened at Nitra's Agrokomplex on March 11.
As well as Slovak companies, the fair also features Czech, Polish, Italian and Hungarian firms, with Asian and American companies present as well, the TASR newswire wrote. Slovakia is represented mainly by small and medium-sized businesses.
In comparison to last year's fair, there are more companies presenting furniture this year, with fewer furniture components, accessories, lights and furniture materials on show. The fair includes the Svetlo domova (Home Lighting), Design Forum and Bytex exhibitions. Slovak Wood Processing Union president Igor Patras says that the furniture industry has already gone through a transformation phase and is now focusing on developing production. In the past couple of years, according to him, round-timber exports have been discontinued, with room created for the development of domestic processing capacity.
"There is a noticeable increase in wood construction, and conditions have improved for window, door, floor and cladding producers. The trend is favourable, but it's going to take longer (to stabilise the industry)," said Patras. Furniture manufacturers in Slovakia produced goods worth Sk44.6 billion (€1.378 billion) last year. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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