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2025, increasing by 20 percent over the same period of 2024. and interest rates, and potential wage growth. These factors
Of the total, the import value was US$147 million, up could boost consumer confidence and encourage spending
seven percent year-on-year. The export value was US$4.905 on furniture”.
billion, up 21 percent year-on-year. CSIL acknowledges that their forecast of European furniture

market prospects is “subject to a higher-than-usual degree of
EU uncertainty” and that the “overall economic and geopolitical
Slow recovery in European furniture production environment remains volatile, with potential downside risks”.
After a two-year period when the value of furniture production But CSIL also highlight the underlying resilience of the
in the EU27 fell by over 10 percent, in 2024 sinking to a European furniture sector, despite recent global market volatility,
level lower even than in 2020 at the height of the pandemic, underpinned “by major retail chains and manufacturers operating
production was showing some signs of recovery in the opening on a European scale” which benefit “from strong internal
months of this year. cohesion and a well-established trade network”.
Eurostat data indicates that seasonally adjusted furniture CSIL note that “this structural strength not only underpins

production in the EU27 during the first four months of 2025 its stability but also drives the substantial concentration of
was up by around 1.5 percent compared to the previous year. export and import flows within the region”.
Furniture production was rising in several EU countries in The resilience of this sector was evident at the interzum
the first four months of this year, notably Lithuania, Poland, show for suppliers to the furniture industry in Cologne during
Spain, and Italy. May. A total of 1,616 exhibiting companies from 57 countries
Production in all four of these countries, which has been on a gross exhibition space of 176,000 sqm and around
outpacing that in nearly all other EU countries in recent years, 60,000 trade visitors from 157 countries took part in the

is now above the pre-pandemic level. show. Despite the sluggish market, these figures were only
Production also recovered ground in Portugal, Romania, marginally down on the previous show in 2023.
and Denmark in the opening months of 2025, although in
each of these countries production is still well down on the European furniture exports remain flat while imports
pre-pandemic level. rise rapidly
Production in Germany, Sweden, France, Belgium, and The latest Eurostat and UK trade data shows that European
the Netherlands continued to stagnate in the first four months exports of wood furniture to countries outside the region,
of this year. after rising and then falling rapidly between 2021 and 2022,
In the latest issue of their in-house journal, World Furniture have remained stable since then at annualised level of just

Online, the Italy-based market research organisation CSIL below 1.5 million tonnes.
reports that total furniture consumption in Europe fell by three In contrast, European imports of wood furniture from other
percent to €106 billion in 2024. This followed an eight percent parts of the world began to increase in the second half of
decline the previous year. 2023, a trend maintained throughout 2024 and in the opening
On market prospects, CSIL observes that in Europe “furniture months of 2025.
demand is forecasted to remain almost stagnant in 2025 and Imports from outside the region in the 12 months ending
slightly improve in the medium term. Some positive factors March 2025, at 2.9 million tonnes, were close to those at the

that could support a recovery include a slight improvement height of the boom in 2021 and 2022.
in macroeconomic indicators, an expected easing of inflation Internal European trade in wood furniture, which was