Offices, homes, hotels and virtually all places people spend their time require some form of furniture. Chairs, tables, desks, beds, wardrobe have gradually become a part of life.

Currently, the furniture industry is recording higher sales and observers think it is being driven by the craze for imported items and sheer ostentation.

Visit to workshops and showrooms in some parts of Accra revealed that though locally made furniture is much cheaper than imports of the same standard, most buyers both Ghanaian indigenes and foreigners resident in the country prefer the latter.

Local furniture dealers in the country, in recent times, are facing a major competition from importers despite the latter’s high prices.

Ghana has experienced the mushrooming of furniture marts, showrooms, centres and workshops in the recent past with most fittings imported from foreign countries.

Whereas furniture importers sell a sofa set for between GH¢700 and GH¢3000, the local version goes for as low as GH¢400 and GH¢1000. The main difference---quality and design.

A recent survey by the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) has revealed that 78 percent of furniture on the Ghanaian market are imported, leaving only 32 percent to the local manufacturer.

The AGI study reports on how three sectors could be made efficient and productive. It noted that there were many problems facing the industry such as high domestic resource cost, high cost of doing business in Ghana as well as the period of registration and starting a business among others.

At the showroom of one importer in Accra, who did not want to be named, BUSINESS GUIDE learnt that local furniture makers were losing out “because they are not creative enough in designs”.

This foreign importer added that the locals were not emphasising quality and the finishing that was typical of the superior sheen of quality evident in imported furniture.

“We are conscious of environmental matters, the reason why our products are made from synthetic materials which are not only more durable than wood but also easier to work on,” he explained.

This dealer echoed the opinion of many players in the industry, saying that “the difference in quality is just too glaring with goods that pass certification, failing the test of time miserably.”

This, he says, has made many consumers insist on the best, in spite of the higher price tag on the imported units.

And there is another factor to explain this trend toward imported goods. Ghana, unlike the Asian exporters of furniture, lacks a well entrenched policy on environmental protection and the best the Government has done is to clamp down on logging, forcing practitioners in the timber sector to import the vital raw materials from countries like China, Dubai, India, South Korea, US, Togo and Malaysia among others.

The number of investors in the business has seen an upward trend but the more established players are calling for more stringent quality control with widespread concern that unscrupulous people pass low quality pieces as high-end furniture, eroding consumer-confidence in the process.

Prince Kwasi Diabo, General Manager of Agorwu Furnitures, is worried about the lax policy that is making the regulation of the sector difficult.

“There are mushroom workshops and furniture centres springing up on daily basis. It is like everyone is operating on his own, God for us all,” he says.

In an interview at the Dodowa Branch of the company that has become popular for its use of well seasoned tropical wood in making all kinds of furniture from the board room to the bedroom, Mr. Diabo pointed to some of the products on display and said “Look at the furnishing; quality is our benchmark but the importation of foreign furniture is affecting our share of the market and perception is swaying people as they think everything from a foreign market is of high quality.

“The common practice is where a dealer is also operating a workshop which is nowhere near the vicinity of the showroom and then pushes off products from his workshop alongside the imported ones, labelling all ‘imported’ ”.

This is the worst spectre haunting dealers with most advising that a customer should insist on quality and do their shopping diligently, observing keenly the kind of material in use and the finishing quality of the product.

However, Mr Paul Nyavor of Kpogas Standard Furniture Company Limited, where 40 percent of products on display in the showrooms are locally made while the rest are imported, says that products have to be labelled properly and the customer properly advised as there are customers for both the locally assembled and imported products.

Imported furniture has been in the market since the beginning of the country’s history with the advent of the Vono beds among other furniture equipment.

The dealers are however quick to add that contrary to popular belief, they do not target the jet set of the community but they serve a cross section of the market, including the low end group of society.

“We import some furniture and assemble some ourselves with different customer targets in mind,” said Mr. Nyavor, who agrees that the prices of imported products are more expensive than local ones.

The peculiar problems that his company faces are competition, power outage, and high cost of producing local furniture because of high cost of inputs (wood and abrasives).

With optimism, Mr. Nyavor foresees the future of the furniture manufacturing industry in Ghana to be more lucrative and “will continue to attract more competitors” as the domestic market is not yet saturated. “More houses, offices are being built and people change their furniture and will continue to change their furniture.

On the other hand, the influx of foreign furniture is not the only problem that the local manufacturers have to contend with; shortage of skilled labour, lack of raw material, obsolete machinery, financial constraint and the lenient government policy among others also form part of the headache of operators.

 “The market itself is facing serious problems,” said Executive Director of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), Prof. Cletus Dordonu, Chief Executive Officer of Cledot Consult, said when he spoke on a TV magazine programme, “The Business Advocate” on Ghana Television to discuss the findings of a survey on the furniture industry.

Prof. Dordonu emphasizes that the patronage of locally manufactured furniture would come with a lot of benefits such as the creation of employment that will lead to the reduction of crime.

He admits that China, Dubai and India where importers now tend to look at, were not Ghana’s traditional trading partners “but with the development and expansion of their industry, Ghanaian traders look in that direction now”.

Mr. Nyavor thinks as the forests deplete, “companies will have to resort to bamboo and plastic material. Kpogas has a vast plantation to fall on in future as a strategic plan.”

For Agorwu Furnitures, by combining wood and metal, “we are not only reducing the use of wood but also giving our clients a variety to choose from”, said the Company’s General Manager.

Lack of education on why people should consume locally manufactured products is also a problem that needs to be looked at as quickly as possible. There is the need to create more awareness so that Ghanaians can consume what they produce.

Government is being blamed as in other countries subsidies are given to manufacturers who later export but in Ghana the opposite pertains and the local industry has to borrow from the banks at a high interest rate.

Government is therefore being called upon to reduce lending rate; but will the banks be able to do this in these times of global economic crisis?

Local raw material is expensive, which makes cost of production high and the supply of raw material is not regular and this makes manufacturers unable to meat customers demand.

“Sometimes, you have an order but you are not able to meet it because your suppliers have failed to deliver but foreign supply is very reliable,” said one player who combines local and imported furniture.  

As the government is being called upon to come to the aid of the manufacturers of local furniture, the operators in the sector should also note that consumers intend to buy their products without compromising on the quality of service.

By Emelia Ennin Abbey