Bosnian furniture sector spurs economic growth
The screech of chainsaws echoes by a Bosnian forest edged by snowy peaks, the place lumber is to be crafted into superior-close household furniture to adorn European or South Korean houses.
The Bosnian home furnishings marketplace has seen regular expansion, punctuated by an sudden growth in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic as provide chains in China ground to a halt, letting new rivals to edge into a worthwhile current market.
It has established to be a unusual results story in the Balkan state that has been plagued by decades of financial malaise following a disastrous civil war in the 1990s.
In the northern Bosnian city of Tesanj, the household furniture corporation Artisan has been critical to the sector’s surge. Its personnel headcount has jumped from 200 to 300 in the past a few years on your own, according to gross sales manager Armin Huremovic.
Started in 2007, the company made its mark overseas 5 many years later on at an international trade good in Cologne, Germany.
“It took us a long time to acquire have confidence in due to the fact we arrive from Bosnia,” Huremovic explained to AFP.
But the gamble has paid out off.
– $855 for a chair –
Their hardwood furniture — some built by the likes of Canadian-US artist Karim Rashid and German merchandise designer Michael Schneider’s business — is now exported to additional than 65 countries.
They provide chairs that promote for close to 800 euros ($850) and tables that easily fetch approximately 9,000 euros.
As a final result, nearly all manufacturing is exported with inventory usually further than the achieve of buyers in Bosnia, where by the average wage is just 570 euros a month.
Even then, Bosnia has captured only a minimal share of the European household furniture market place, approximated to be really worth about 96 billion euros in 2020.
The state is abundant, nevertheless, in a single of the industry’s significant setting up blocks — wooden.
In accordance to Ognjenka Lalovic, an official at the Bosnian Chamber of International Trade, the lumber industry “accounts for 10 to 15 per cent of complete exports”.
Those exports have steadily grown for decades, while there are fears of a setback in 2023 because of to the financial fallout linked to the war in Ukraine.
The sector owes its good results to “high-quality raw components, an professional workforce and custom”, suggests Lalovic.
– Forest go over –
“We are 1 of the few countries in Europe wherever 60 per cent of the surface is lined by forests.”
Situated in the Dinaric Alps, Bosnia is blanketed by dense woodlands, which includes a single of the previous most important forests on the continent — Perucica — in the southeast.
Eldin Sabeta, head of income at Conventional Household furniture Manufacturing facility — one of the country’s premier exporters, mentioned Bosnian producers have continually crafted exceptional products at a lot more cost-effective charges when compared to a lot of rivals.
Like other local makers, the enterprise specialising in hardwood eating area pieces has reaped the benefits of the upheaval brought about by the coronavirus.
Faced with challenges importing from China and Asia at massive, European outlets have ever more turned to Balkan suppliers.
“We’ve witnessed a internet maximize around the past two years,” says Sabeta. “Each individual month, a new customer knocks on our door.”
“They need dependable suppliers,” he provides.
rus/ev/ds/giv/jm