Fair Journal

As we have been announcing lately, the BIFE SIM furniture and accessories fair took place at Romexpo from September 14 to 18. From the very beginning, we had a general picture that went something like this.

This year's fair looks like a revival. Firms in the industry seem to have started to turn a profit and as a result are starting to pay attention and invest in marketing. The stands are much more elaborate and well thought out, no more spaces where furniture looks like it's been picked out of storage and deposited at the fair. There are concept stands, made by designers, cleverly thought out, innovative and spectacularly implemented. We have seen a shift from just being an exhibitor to paying attention to how you present yourself.

Furniture design has increased and is one of the well-represented spheres.

And the "heavy" category of installations, equipment, machinery, machines, tools, as always is very well represented and demonstrations are always taking place.

On the other hand, the symposium "Status of forestry legislation and securing wood resources for furniture producers" revealed problems of furniture producers. There is a great dissatisfaction among them with the 20% increase in the price of wood mass and 18% increase in labor costs since the beginning of the year. And all these increases at a time when they can only renegotiate contracts with customers with an increase margin of a maximum of 5% per year.

There is also dissatisfaction with the authorities' lack of response to the media campaign on illegal logging. It seems that the published data is based on older analysis and that the reforestation rate has increased in the meantime.

But perhaps the biggest dissatisfaction is related to the amendment of the law on public procurement, which is the reason why they missed the Paris trade fair and, most likely, producers will also miss the Moscow and Doha fairs.

These were the 'warm' impressions after the first day. Now that it is over, the impressions from the fair diary have been rearranged and completed in areview "cold".