Adapt to take advantage of opportunities

The global market is constantly fluctuating and increasingly unpredictable, which is a big challenge for many industries, including timber industry. However, in the current difficult period, there are still opportunities for businesses to have a strategy and adapt well to new rules of the game. That is the opinion of experts at the Vietnam Furniture and Wood Industry Forum themed "Keeping the position - taking the opportunity", held by the Handicraft and Woodworking Association of Ho Chi Minh City (HAWA) last July.

Binh Duong is considered the "capital" of Vietnam's timber industry when there are more than 1,200 wood processing and exporting enterprises and accounting for nearly half of the total export turnover of this item of the country. Currently, like other consumer industries, timber industry is in a difficult situation due to the volatility of the global market. Although it was forecasted in advance, the prolonged lack of orders led to the dissolution of enterprises and workers losing their jobs. Facing that situation, enterprises in the wood industry are trying to adapt to market fluctuations, find opportunities to overcome difficulties and continue to develop.

The peculiarity of timber processing and export industry is that it uses a lot of labor. Lack of production orders means reducing the employment of workers. The biggest difficulty of timber industry today is creating jobs to retain workers. In the face of a shortage of orders, many timber enterprises have to divide shifts for workers to work in rotation, without organizing overtime to ensure that all workers have jobs and income. Some enterprises also actively create more jobs by converting production products, searching for markets for new products. Along with retaining employees, businesses also streamline the management apparatus, rationally organize the production line to reduce costs in difficult times.

According to many economic experts, the lack of orders is only temporary, Vietnam's wood industry still has room to continue to develop in the next 5 to 10 years based on the growth of the world economy.  Once the market recovers, the opportunity for timber industry is huge. Therefore, timber enterprises need to prepare strategies for the next steps, quickly adapting to the new "rules of the game". One of the new "rules of the game" that the market is urgently demanding is the sustainability of furniture products in the direction of green transformation. This is no longer a voluntary standard as before but has become a mandatory condition, if you want to participate in the market.

Green transformation right now is the way to improve the competitiveness of timber enterprises. Green transformation is a necessary step in positioning goals and vision for timber industry enterprises to take advantage of post-inflation opportunities, thereby developing more sustainably.

 Reported by Le Quang - Translated by Ngoc Huynh