ARGENTINA - According to an advance of the survey of the Observatory of the Wood and Furniture Industry (OIMyM) promoted by the Argentine Federation of the Wood and Allied Industry (FAIMA), the wood industry estimates to close 2018 with a production drop of around 9.5%.

Of those surveyed, 60% of companies in the industrial forestry sector say that their production fell more than 5% in 2018 and 64% said that sales fell more than 10 percent this year, with many cases of companies with drops of more than 40% in sales. In addition, 1 in 3 companies reduced their personnel this year.

This survey, still in process and reaching annually 500 wood and furniture industry companies across the country, was presented at the 139th Wood Congress held on 23 and 24 November in Buenos Aires, within the framework of the 85 years of the institution and in the presence of more than 100 businessmen and representatives of the 28 chambers that make up the federation nationwide.

According to the data from the Observatory, historically the labor-intensive character of the wood transformation activity gave a positive bias to the protection of jobs in the sector, despite the fall in profitability. “The entrepreneur knows how much it is worth having an employee trained in the trade and strives to retain him,” said Pedro Reyna, President of FAIMA. "However, the current crisis is intense enough to have labor implications and companies began to reduce their personnel, so we view this situation with great concern," said Reyna.

In its conclusions, the Wood Congress urged the Government to direct efforts to strengthen market conditions. Among other measures, the wood and furniture industry, as a sensitive sector, proposes that the benefits of the labor and tax reform be granted in advance, as has recently occurred with the textile and footwear sectors; in addition to considering measures of productive financing and incentives regarding consumer credit demand.