Export market growing fast

Press, 25 May 1977, Page 4

Export market growing fast

Millions of dollars of New Zealand made furniture is exported to Australia every year and Auckland manufacturers are now finding new markets in the South Pacific.

The growing export of furniture and components to Australia has been further encouraged by the N.A.F.T.A. agreement which allows this country to export up to S2M worth of furniture duty free. This year, for the second time, New Zealand manufacturers as a group exhibited at the Melbourne Furniture Fair. Thirty companies took part including three from Christchurch.

Mr Barry Hopping, the manager of Howard Smith, Ltd, who attended the fair, said the chief emphasis of the Melbourne show was to inform the public. New Zealand retailers supported their shows more strongly than in Australia, he said.

“The influence of pine is strong in Australian furniture at present and the beginnings of this influence can be seen in some of the furniture manufacture!! in Auckland,” he said. “However, it is a cool look and doesn’t particularly suit our climate, except in Auckland, so it is unlikely to become a strong influence here.”

Australian furniture was generally on a par with the local product, except in the field of furnishing fabrics where the Australians had wider ranges at

lower prices from which to choose, he said.

Much of the export trade is in furniture components; chair frames, drawer and table components and turned pieces, and most of the demand is for New Zealand timbers, said Mr Hopping. “New Zealand furnishing lines do better where they are high in labour, the cost of labour and hence the finished product being more expensive in Australia,” he said. “There is also a demand for anything unusual. Anything which is a little bit different to the lines already available will find a niche in the Australian market. An example is the mini office desk for the home that we produced last year.

“One of the most significant things to hit the New Zealand furniture industry in 10 years” is how Mr Hopping described the opening of the Canterbury Timber Products, Ltd, fibreboard mill at Ashley. “The mill will produce a type of fibreboard used in panel wood products — it is a type of product well known in the American furnishing industry,” he said.

Some furniture made from the fibreboard, known as customwood, we-, on display at the Melbourne Furniture Fair.

“It attracted a great deal of attention from the Australian retailers, and the manufacturers, because there is no plant producing this sort of product in Australia,” said Mr Hopping.