On July 31, the Indonesian Furniture and Crafts Industry Association (Himpunan Industri Mebel dan Kerajinan Indonesia, HIMKI for short) stated at a press conference that Indonesian furniture exports in the first half of this year increased by 40%.

According to the association' s statistics, in the first half of 2021, Indonesian furniture and handicrafts exports amounted to US$1.687 billion, an increase of 35.4% over the same period in 2020. Among them, furniture exports increased by 40% and handicrafts exports increased by 24.9%.

"This is an achievement worthy of our gratitude. During the COVID-19 pandemic, national furniture and handicrafts still achieved considerable growth." HIMKI Chairman Abdul Sobur said in a written statement on August 3.

Chairman HIMKI pointed out that the United States is still the country’ s largest export destination, accounting for about 50.2% of total exports, followed by Japan with 7.4%; Netherlands, 5.3%; Germany, 4.3%.

The country imported 36.3% of furniture in the first half of the year, imports of handicrafts increased by 20.3%, and total imports of furniture and handicrafts increased by 29.1%.

The largest source of imports is China, accounting for 76.9% of total imports, with the rest coming from Thailand, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam. The association said that the import volume is still relatively small, but it is expected that the import volume will continue to grow.