Atpeh to help expand market for Malaysian furniture
KUALA LUMPUR (Sin Chew Daily/ANN) - Mah Siew Keong revealed that the Asean Timber Products & Furniture Exchange Hub was adopting the Online-To-Offline procurement model, allowing Malaysian sellers and Chinese buyers to do their deals on this platform and will help to streamline the traditional transaction procedures and boost furniture exports to China.
Minister of plantation industries and commodities Mah Siew Keong hoped the Asean Timber Products & Furniture Exchange Hub (Atpeh) would further expand the market of Malaysian furniture in China and other Asean countries, and help furniture exports grow steadily in a highly competitive environment.
He said Malaysia's timber and timber product exports topped RM22.14 billion in 2015, up 6.5% from the RM20.78 billion registered a year earlier. Furniture exports alone reached RM9.14 billion, a 14.1% increase over the previous year.
Mah said during the launch of Atpeh today that China was one of the largest importers of Malaysian furniture, absorbing RM144 million worth of furniture from Malaysia in 2015. This amount is expected to rise further this year.
He said Atpeh was adopting the Online-To-Offline (O2O) procurement model, allowing Malaysian sellers and Chinese buyers to do their deals on this platform. It will streamline the traditional transaction procedures and help boost furniture exports to China.
In his address, Malaysian Furniture Council president Chua Chun Chai said the Atpeh platform would be accessible to the Chinese market after 30 days through its website at www.atpeh.com.
He said China was a huge market with 1.3 billion people, half of whom already plugged to the Internet. To penetrate this enormous community, the furniture manufacturing industry must think out of the box towards a more diverse and innovative business model.
"We are prepared to enlist 150 industry players to join this platform. So far about 100 manufacturers and related industry players have joined the platform which will be like Tabao.com of China, allowing the Malaysian furniture industry to explore new market frontiers.
Additionally, Chua also hoped that the government would address the issue of foreign labor shortage as soon as possible, so as not to bog down production.
In a media conference later, Malaysian Timber Council chairman Wee Jeck Seng said the local furniture industry was targeting RM16 billion in exports and maintaining or improving on its eight global ranking by 2020.
