The AGM of World Furniture Confederation was held on October 20, 2021. The election of office bearers has been postponed but the meeting welcomed some new members. They include European Furniture Industries Confederation (EFIC), Trade Promotion Center of India (TPCI), Indufor Oy, and Setor Moveleiro.
WFC Chairman Xu Xiangnan made meeting remarks. He pointed out that the global COVID-19 pandemic has significantly changed the development path of the world. Long-term challenges facing the international society have been accentuated, which are combined with such short-term challenges as division in multilateral cooperation, regional conflicts and increasing inequalities. Each country is more looking forward to peace, development, and equality than before. The industry has seen the efforts of the international society to overcome difficulties together.
“Among the results, the global furniture industry has shown a strong recovery momentum with growth of 26.8% in the first half of this year, to which China has made considerable contributions. In the future, the global furniture industry needs to improve awareness of the macro environment, in order to take advantage of opportunities brought by transformation and strengthen resilience during the global recovery. We can create better life for people around the world by first stressing the societal benefits of the industry through sharing development gains, by second promoting industrial sustainable development through fostering advanced innovations, and by third activating industrial growth by supporting multilateral governance.” Said Xu.
Mr Xu emphasized that the World Furniture Confederation as an organization for international communication and coordination has abundant resources that can support our work in building the global furniture industry’s shared community.
The global furniture trade is facing huge challenges currently. Although a lot of chaos within the global supply chain is beyond the control of the group, through the WFC platform stakeholders can partake in info sharing to gain a better sense of the situation in the various markets, to forecast emerging trends, address challenges and opportunities, as well as to explore solutions.
