BERLIN: German furniture exports in August grew overall year-on-year by 4.4%, thereby showing a significantly better trend than in the preceding months. For July, the foreign-trade statistics drawn up on the basis of data from the Federal German Statistics Office by German Furniture Industry Association, which cover all imports and exports, including reexports, recorded for customs purposes, still showed decline of 0.8%, after June had seen only a slight increase of 0.6%.
All partial sectors in the furniture industry except for Mattresses (-10.6%) contributed to the improvement in exports in August. At plus 12.1%, the kitchen-furniture industry achieved the highest growth rate. The statistics show that manufacturers of living-, dining- and bedroom furniture, who had already increased exports in the preceding months, achieved growth of 3.2% in August. At plus 1.7%, exports of Miscellaneous Seating Furniture were only slightly up, while all other sectors achieved higher rates of growth: Upholstered Furniture (+4.9%), Office Furniture (+4.5%), Shop Furniture (+3.0%) and Miscellaneous Furniture (+4.2%).
