The news from last month’s Salon du Meuble Paris Furniture Show is that the industry is in buoyant mood after reporting growth in production, consumption, imports and exports for last year.

About 1,500 exhibitors from 38 countries displayed their new models to around 50,000 visitors, of which 20% were from overseas.

Designs are exciting as traditional markets, such as France, move towards more contemporary ranges and ‘modernise’ their reproduction furniture; this reflects the improvement in demand. France has also pioneered the greater use of lower grades and ‘character’ wood.

Demand for solid wood is holding up well and the use of temperate over tropical hardwood is now almost total. The show also indicated that the progress of substitute materials, such as vinyl foils, has slowed as manufacturers and their customers look increasingly for real wood. Foil is significant only at the lower end of the market.

Oak is back in fashion and much of it is European. This is for two main reasons: the windblown oak from the French storms a year ago is storing well and the French oak industry has invested in a promotion campaign which appears to be paying off – helped by the high value of the dollar and the desire of French manufacturers to buy in French francs.

Hardwood furniture featured strongly in many of the product lines.

Germany is the largest furniture market in the European Union and much of it is supplied from factories in eastern Europe. However, Germany’s largest user of real wood veneer, Hulsta Werke, manufactures exclusively in Germany using mainly American and some European species. The company, which had a huge stand in Paris, operates at the top end of the market and has recently announced its certification process and the award of the German ‘Blue Angel’, an environmental award encompassing all aspects of environmental sustainability in manufacturing.

By contrast, the French group Gautier France (SA), operating at the cheaper end of the market, continues to champion vinyl foil covered and PVC laminate furniture to the mass market in Europe, particularly in the youth sector. This is also a main market target for groups like IKEA, which are heavily dependent on eastern European furniture manufacturing. In 2000, IKEA France saw 18 million visitors to its 10 stores and yet France remains a country of mainly small and medium furniture manufacturers that are sharply divided in their use of hardwood. However, it is evident that those who supposedly use French hardwoods, marketed under the banner of ‘bois du pays’, are often buying European hardwoods although this is sometimes unclear from their catalogues.