Today, Sweden's exports for the Chinese furniture industry are mainly represented by spruce, but there is an increasing interest for pine wood furniture in China as well. Leading Chinese furniture companies exhibited their goods within the framework of FMC China 2015 fair held in Shanghai on September 9-12 in the Swedish booth, since all furniture was made of so-called 'knotty' Swedish pine. The booth provoked a great deal of interest.
China and Sweden launched a project "Furniture for a Sustainable Life". Furniture for a Sustainable Life is a cooperation project between Swedish Wood and China National Furniture Association. The objective of the project is to support participating Chinese furniture manufacturers to increase their knowledge and experience of using Swedish pine in furniture production.
Thus, nine Chinese furniture companies participating in this project produced their furniture of Swedish pine. Four of the nine furniture companies chose to manufacture children's furniture. Earlier on, Swedish Wood (Svenskt Trä) conducted a survey among Chinese consumers, and it showed that children's furniture is an important market for Swedish wood in China. The survey also showed that Chinese consumers prefer Swedish pine and spruce in bedroom furniture, kitchen table and chairs.
According to Charlotte Dedye Apelgren, the head of the Interior&Design department of Swedish Wood, the exhibition in Shanghai has proven that there's a growing interest for the Swedish pine in China nowadays.
The Chinese companies involved in the project are consistently very pleased with its results, says Swedish Wood in its press-release.
The general tendency of the Chinese market opening up to the Swedish softwood lumber can be also traced in statistical data. Thus, according to the data provided by Eurostat, Swedish softwood lumber exports (pine/spruce; sawn and planed) to China came up to EUR 61.6 million in H1/2015, having grown by 60% y-o-y (H1/2014: 38.5 million). In 2014, Sweden's softwood lumber exports to China valued at EUR 84.2 million which indicates to a 66% growth over 2013 (EUR 50.7 million).