The furniture industry is an innovative industry that produces high added value products and its turnover is several billions of euros in Europe. Nowadays competitiveness is an essential factor for each industry and its enterprises in the process of dealing with changing market conditions. Latvian wood furniture market value, numbers of employees and enterprises in the sector and its share in GDP has decreased. As a result, there are the serious challenges to be met and increase their competitiveness in domestic and export markets.
The study goal – Latvian furniture industry competitive opportunities compared to other Baltic States furniture industries, that is, Estonia and Lithuania. Research tasks: carry out a comparison of typical indicators (exports, imports, number of employees and the company’s dynamics, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the sector, assess the sector’s potential opportunities and threats in the reference countries. The study period was from 2008 to 2015.
The strong tradition of furniture production, abundance of timber resources, cheaper access to timber resources and human resources, and favourable geographical location create equal strengths for all the three Baltic States. The evaluation in the context of the Baltic States leads to the conclusion that national strategic support and creation of favourable business environment for entering of foreign capital companies have made a significant contribution to the furniture industry of Lithuania. Whereas, the successful development of Estonia’s furniture industry has been achieved by national strategic support that was oriented to increasing the capacity and benchmarking approach of furniture manufacturing enterprises. It is difficult to find one common basis that would promote exactly the furniture manufacturing industry of Latvia, because national strategic support for attracting investors or, on the contrary, increasing of capacity of local enterprises manufacturing furniture practically does not exist. The regular monitoring of wooden furniture manufacturing could significantly contribute to the overall growth of the industry and the development of wood products.
Keywords: wood furniture, competitiveness, baltic states
Authors
Liše S.
Latvia University of Agriculture, Woodprocessing Departament, Jelgava, Latvia
Domkins A.
Forest and Wood Product Research and Development Institute, Jelgava, Latvia
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