Furniture Clusters in Pakistan-1

There are some furniture clusters working in different countries in Pakistan.

Lahore

The Lahore cluster is basically based on the traders of wooden furniture. There are more than 1,500 retail shops trading in MDF furniture, office, bedroom and living room furniture. However, in the last decade this market has diversified its product range to all kinds of furniture articles. These traders usually purchase furniture in semi-finished form from Chiniot and polish and upholster it in their workshops. However, there are around 100-200 small cottage sized workshops in Lahore are engaged in wooden furniture manufacturing. There profit margins are quite high as all the value addition is done in Lahore according to the requirement of the customers.
Majority of these manufacturing units use low-tech machinery which are either locally made or are second hand imported machines. However, some furniture manufacturers have established a production line based on new modern machinery and seasoning kiln facilities. On average each manufacturing facilities employs 5 to 20 workers depending on its scope of work.
At present there are around five large clusters of furniture markets within Lahore i.e. Fortress Stadium, Gulberg, AIlama Iqbal Town, Ferozepur Road and Multan Road. These markets mostly cater to the needs of the domestic market. Because of the poor finishing quality and inferior packaging the exports are not existent or negligible.

Chiniot

Although Chiniot wooden furniture industry is approximately 150 to 200 years old, but still remained at cottage sized scale. There are almost 3,000 to 4,000 manufacturing units in Chiniot, which use primitive technology and techniques for manufacturing. Around 40,000 people are directly employed by this industry. The demand for this kind of furniture is increasing in the international market.
Chiniot is a major cluster engaged in the manufacturing of handmade wooden carved furniture. The basic raw material used for hand carved furniture is Sheesham wood, which is under an attack of an unknown kind of disease. This has resulted in a shortage of raw material and increase in its price.
The stakeholders can be categorized into manufacturers, craftsmen, traders, timber merchants, exporters, transporters and financial institutions. The number of skilled craftsmen is declining, which is creating severe shortage in the industry. The semi-finished items (Kora) are sold to all major cities throughout Pakistan. Direct export from this industry or cluster is negligible.