THE government hopes that local furniture manufacturers will be able to reach RM12 billion in exports by 2020, now that a total ban on rubberwood exports is in place.
“We hope to see Malaysia’s furniture exports further improve following the ban on rubberwood exports effective July 1,” said Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong at the Muar Furniture Association’s 35th anniversary dinner in Muar, Johor, over the weekend.
“Our target is for Malaysia’s furniture exports to reach RM12 billion by 2020.”
Last year, Malaysia’s furniture exports totalled RM9.53 billion, a 4.2 per cent rise over 2015’s RM9.14 billion, which made the country the world’s eighth-largest furniture exporter.
“In the first quarter of this year, Malaysia’s furniture exports amounted to RM2 billion, 6.3 per cent higher than in the same period last year,” he said.
For the past two decades, the government has periodically imposed and lifted bans on rubberwood exports to balance the competing needs of local sawmillers and furniture makers.
Sawmillers put forward the case that the timber fetches higher prices in the export market, while furniture manufacturers say they require large volumes of timber at competitive rates to meet clients’ orders.
Last year, local sawmillers exported some RM300 million worth of rubberwood timber to Vietnam and China.
When Mah was appointed to the Plantation Industries and Commodities portfolio last year, he vowed to accelerate the government’s policy of encouraging more downstream activities so as to add value to Malaysia’s RM1.11 trillion economy.
He said rubber trees in Malaysia were mostly planted by smallholders.
A rubber tree would be tapped for its latex for about 25 years, after which its productivity drops drastically, prompting farmers to replant their trees with higher yield clones.
Sawmillers would then process felled rubber trees into timber and then either have them shipped out or sold to local furniture manufacturers.
Furniture-makers craft the timber into luxury flooring and panelling, or turn the rubberwood into furniture.
Muar is the biggest furniture hub in Malaysia and produces about two-thirds of Malaysia’s furniture exports.
With the ban on rubberwood exports in place, Mah expects raw materials to be more competitively available for wooden furniture manufacturers.