State export officials urged furniture makers to look beyond High Point and increase their overseas business.
“We are looking at a changing world of furniture,” Charlie Greene, chairman of the N. C. Furnishings Export Council , told furniture makers Tuesday at a breakfast. “Our opportunities are in export.”
Established by Gov. Jim Hunt in 1995, the export council works to increase home-furnishings exports to international markets from North Carolina.
The meeting featured specific opportunities in the Pacific Rim, such as Japan, the world’s second-largest economy — next to the United States — with roughly $4.6 trillion in 2004.
In 2005, the United States exported about $378 million in furniture to Japan, according to figures presented by Sumio Shibata, a representative with the State of North Carolina Office in Japan. In the same year, North Carolina exported nearly $19 million to Japan, he said.
With a growing economy in a densely populated country, the opportunity for furniture sales is increasing. But unlike houses in the United States, Japanese homes are smaller and require more compact furnishings.
Japan also has a furnishings show similar to High Point’s International Home Furnishings Market , which opens Thursday. The International Furniture Fair in Tokyo attracts about 26,000 visitors and about 550 exhibitors.
But state leaders said work on the home front is also a priority. With a shift in some U.S. furniture manufacturing to overseas factories, North Carolina needs to refocus on how it will remain the furniture center.
“This industry is one in transition,” state Secretary of Commerce Jim Fain said. “What we have here in North Carolina is the know-how of how to design and market home furnishings around the world.”
Fain and other leaders said the state’s furniture future may be in distribution and transportation of home furnishings.
“North Carolina is within 600 miles of 75 percent of furniture sold in the U.S.,” said Tom Crump, director of the export council . “The future for distribution is great.”
