On the 8th of this month, Leonard F. Hutabarat, Consul General of Indonesia in Toronto, held an online meeting with Sinthusan Sivagnanam, CEO of Avanica Inc., a Canadian company that invests in the production of wooden furniture in Indonesia. The meeting aimed to discuss the company’s export of Indonesian wood to Canada. The latest developments in the manufacture of furniture.

Hutabarat highly appreciates Avanica's promotion of Indonesian wooden furniture products in Canada and encourages the company to expand its marketing in Canada.

Sivagnanam said that in order to meet the needs of the Canadian and American markets, Avanica produces in many places in Indonesia and actively cooperates with local companies. After the epidemic has passed, wooden furniture will become a popular product in the United States and Canada.

According to Statistics Canada, in 2020, the export of Indonesian furniture products to Canada increased by 21.4% year-on-year. In the first quarter of 2021, exports of these products also increased by 49.4% over the same period in 2020.

Despite the huge potential, Indonesian furniture exports still face many challenges, including the scarcity of Indonesian containers and their price increase by about 10 times during the epidemic. Given its huge impact on Indonesia’s export performance, the government needs to address this issue. This problem even affected the productivity of furniture craftsmen.

However, the potential opportunity is that Canada imposed high tariffs on some upholstered furniture in China and Vietnam, coupled with inflation, resulting in furniture prices rising to the highest level since 1982. The country's furniture business may choose to import furniture and raw materials from other countries in Southeast Asia.