Just a few days before the opening of the Salone del Mobile in Milano, scheduled from 18 to 23 April in the halls of Rho Fiera, the FederlegnoArredo Study Centre presents the 2022 Final Accounts of the wood-furnishing supply chain, which closes 2022 at +12.6% driven by exports.
 

A supply chain with 68 thousand companies, or 14.9% of the manufacturing total, 298 thousand employees, or 8% of the total, and a production turnover of EUR 56.5 billion, or 4.6% of the total.

 

Changing the routes of Made in Italy

Data from the Study Centre show that it is precisely exports that have driven the numbers of the wood-furniture supply chain in 2022, with +13.3%. However, it is interesting to note how the routes of Made in Italy design are changing.

Europe is confirmed as the market to be constantly maintained and developed, joined by the United States in strong growth (+25.7%) and the new entries United Arab Emirates and India which, year after year, are moving up the rankings by increasing the imported value of our products.France is the first destination for Italian exports in the sector with about 3.3 billion euros in 2022 and a growth of 9.5%. Germany is the third market and grows by 9.7% compared to 2021, reaching 2.3 billion euros. China is stable in seventh place, while exports to Russia, which were worth 334 million euros in 2022, fell by 27.3% or 126 million euros compared to 2021, thus knocking Russia out of the top ten in chain exports.

 

A healthy supply chain

Claudio Feltrin, recently re-elected President of FederlegnoArredo, commented on these positive figures as follows. "The results of the 2022 Final Reports reveal a healthy sector, rewarded for the quality and uniqueness of its products, but one that has had to come to terms with an ever-changing context: first Covid, then the war, and now the crisis in the banking system, which we hope is only a false alarm, destined to be rectified as soon as possible. The figures speak for themselves, the chain's turnover has reached levels that were unthinkable just a few years ago, but the weight of inflation and the cost of raw materials has resulted in a gap of no less than 11 points between turnover and furniture production, which has in fact been just above zero".

 

2023 year of normalisation

The President of FederlegnoArredo looks at 2023 as the year of adjustment in which it could be realistic to think of a year-end for the furniture sector at +5%, driven once again mainly by exports.  The domestic market, on the other hand, could be affected by the stop-and-go policy on building bonuses.
As far as the wood sector is concerned, there could even be a drop of 3.2%, a figure that should be read as an indicator of the progressive reduction in the cost of energy and wood raw material and other materials, such as urea-based glues, which are indispensable for making panels, for example. A negative sign, but one that would not be so bad for the world of wood, because it would mean a return to a situation where turnover is not determined by exorbitant production costs.
"Overall," Feltrin concludes, "we can go so far as to say that 2023 could be the year of market normalisation, with the consequent restart of investments in ecological and digital transition, in human resources training and internationalisation, the real drivers of development for the entire sector.