US housing slump hits India's furniture exports

NEW DELHI: The collapse of the US housing market and the shutting down of retail stores in the US have put Indian furntiture exporters in a fix. The orders have dried up by as much as 70% in the past few months forcing exporters to cut jobs.

A Jodhpur-based leading furniture exporter Prince Art Exports, which has US furniture retailers Cost Plus and Pier 1 Imports as its clients, has seen its order book shrink continuously for the past six months, following the breakout of US subprime crisis.

���This is the worst situation we have faced in the past 30 years. We used to ship 22 containers every month to Cost Plus, but haven���t sent any in the past three months. Similarly, orders from Pier 1 too have completely dried up,��� says Prince Art Export owner Mahavir Jain.

Prince Art Exports��� shipments halved in March and is expected to go down by 80% next month, given the low volume of orders. The company���s turnover shrunk by 20% last year. The worse, however, may be in store.

Prince Art Exports, with a turnover of Rs 60 crore, is counted among the large furniture exporters of India. Most Indian furniture exporters are very small and it���s more difficult for them to hold on in these troubled times.

India mainly exports handcrafted furniture with Jodhpur, Jaipur and Delhi being the major manufacturing centres. There is no centralised data available for furniture exports from India. However, Jodhpur Handicraft Exporters Association (JHEA) estimates that Jodhpur, a leading centre housing around 400 exporters, sends out furniture worth Rs 900 crore.

Nearly 40% of city���s export goes to the US. Not just the US, but European retail chains too have stopped placing orders, according to JHEA president Nirmal Bhandari. As a result, at least 30 small furniture exporters with a turnover of Rs 1-2 crore have shut shops in Jodhpur, he says.