HCM CITY — The first Việt Nam international woodworking machinery and wood material show (VIFA WOODMAC Vietnam 2017) will be held in Bình Dương Province from August 23-25.

The show aims to help domestic woodworking firms to adopt advanced technologies and identify legal timber sources.

Of the 109 firms manning 420 booths, 30 will be from Vietnamese provinces and cities, and the remaining 79 from 14 countries and territories including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland and Turkey, said Huỳnh Văn Hạnh, general director of HAWA Corporation, one of the event’s organisers.

Firms exhibiting machinery will account for 53 per cent of total exhibitors, followed by wood materials (23 per cent), accessories for the woodworking industry (17 per cent ) and services (7 per cent), Hạnh said at a press briefing in HCM City on August 11.

Explaining the choice of the exhibition place Hạnh said “Bình Dương is home to many industrial parks and the largest woodworking centre in the south as well as in the whole country.

“Therefore, it is the most convenient and ideal place to organise such a fair, serving woodworking industry in the region as well as in the country,” he said.

The fair will be a place for manufactures, importers, distributors and traders of machinery and wood materials to connect and explore business potentials, he said.

Huỳnh Quang Thanh, chairman of Bình Dương Furniture Association, said there were about 600 woodworking firms in the province who badly need new technologies to improve their productivity and quality.

Organised by HAWA Corporation and Singapore’s Pablo Publishing Pte Ltd, the show will include a seminar on improving productivity in the woodworking industry. It will also hold a wood grading class.

The fair will be held at the Bình Dương Convention and Exhibition Centre. It is expected to welcome visitors from 1,500 businesses, Hạnh said.

Wood products export

Export of wooden products is expected to increase by more than 10 per cent this year to top more than US$8 billion, Hạnh said.

In the first half of the year, export of wood and wooden products topped $3.66 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13.9 per cent, of which earning from wooden product exports was worth $2.69 billion, up 14.8 per cent over the same period last year, Hạnh said.

Hạnh said “Global wooden product consumption was worth more than $356 billion last year. Supply from Việt Nam accounted for just 1.66 per cent of this figure, which means there are huge opportunities for Vietnamese firms to boost their exports.”

“In addition, China, the world’s largest supplier of wooden products, has cut its overall timber harvesting quota by 9 per cent, equal to about 41 million cubic metres of timber, opening up more opportunities for Vietnamese firms to increase their market share,” he said.

To capitalise on the opportunities, “Vietnamese firms need to invest more in modern technologies to reduce costs and increase their productivity and quality,” Thanh said. — VNS