CAIRO: Some small furniture manufactures owners said they confront a lot of obstacles in manufacturing furniture, since there is a lack of raw materials. The available raw materials are poor quality used to manufacture furniture, which is offensive to Egyptian manufactures. The owners pointed out the tough competition with Asian furniture products, especially the Chinese ones, characterized by its low prices because the Chinese government supports the manufacturers. However the Egyptian government doesn't offer any support to Egyptian manufactures, which leads to the rise of prices of Egyptian manufactures. The owners confirmed the prominent role of The Social Fund for Development to support and help smaller manufactures, either by offering suitable fund raising with less interest than banks or by establishing specialized exhibitions to market Egyptian products. "The prices of raw material rose recently by 20 percent, as well as back draws of exports since they were exporting 70 percent to countries like Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordon, Syria and Lebanon," said a workshop owner, Hossam Ali. He added the export rate now didn't exceeded 4 percent since 2006, which negatively decreased the rate of production. The director of Karim Art Company for furniture, Peter Naem, said his project started in 1993 with a loan from The Social Fund for Development. He established a small factory manufacturing kitchen furniture and bedroom furniture and establishing a few private exhibitions. On other hand, Naem reported there is only one factory with MDF material, a type of wood, which enables the factory to control prices. Naem added he was supposed to establish some projects to create competitive prices within the Egyptian market and improve production.
