"BIZNES meble.pl" international 1/2018

–bA GUARANTEE OF QUALITY Furniture from Poland Photo by Tomasz Markowski T he furniture industry is one of the fastest growing sector of Po- lish industry. The value of sold production of Polish furniture manufacturers in 2016 amounted to almost 10.5 billion euro, which is almost one tenth of European furniture production. Poland is the fourth producer (after Germany, Italy and Great Britain) and the third exporter (after Germany and Italy) of fur- niture in Europe. The average annual growth rate of the Polish furniture industry in 2010-2016 amounted to almost 9% and was almost twice as high as in case of the entire Polish industrial manufacturing. This result is even more impressive when we take as a reference years 2012-2016 – the average annual growth rate amounts to almost 11% in that case. The year 2011was record-braking, in which the increase in the value of sold production of the Polish furniture industry was over 17%. The driving force behind the development of the Polish furniture industry is exports, which currently amounts to over 90% of the value of sold production (9.5 billion euro). The most important recipients of Polish furniture are, of course, the European Union countries, primarily Germany, Great Britain, the Czech Repu- blic, France, the Netherlands and Sweden. In order to visualize the scale of Polish furniture exports and its dynamic development in recent years, one comparison is enough – in 2010-2016 total furniture exports from Poland almost doubled. On the one hand, this was facilitated by the stable and favourable currency exchange rate for Polish exporters, and on the other hand, the product offered by Polish companies is getting better, both in terms of quality and design. And, in fact, it is this attractive product combined with the passion of Polish furniture ma- nufacturers that contributed to the fact that today they have a brand of credible and reliable partners in Europe. There are many indications that Polish furniture manufacturers have not yet said the last word – according to estimates, by 2020 the value of sold production of Polish furniture manufacturers will increase by another 20%. d MAREK HRYNIEWICKI editor in chief In terms of value of production and furniture exports, Poland is one of the European and world leaders. On the other hand, furniture production is one of the most important sector of the Polish economy. 4 BIZNES meble.pl [ international edition 1/2018