A Mardan based furniture unit, Woodco Furniture (Pvt) Limited will be opening two showrooms in Birmingham and London to put NWFP manufactured products on display in Europe. In this connection, a formal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in 2003 with the co-operation of Small and Medium Entrepreneurs Development Authority (Smeda), which would be materialised in few weeks, Smeda provincial chief Muhammad Tariq told Business Recorder. He said the authority made a proposal to that effect, which he added, would go a long way in the larger interest of the furniture manufacturers of the country.
He said the establishment of show room would help provide display centre and help promote the export along with bringing improvement in the quality of products.
Furthermore, he said it would strengthen the Smeda's concept for establishment of a 'Furniture Village' creating export oriented environment particularly in the north west frontier province.
Talking to this scribe, Woodco Furniture (Pvt) Limited Chief Executive Bahadar Khan said the establishment of show rooms would help bringing all Pakistan manufactured furniture products in the heart of Europe. "It is for the first time in more than 50 years' history of the country that furniture display centres would be established in an European country," he said.
He said it would also help technology transfer and introduction of new designs attracting a large number of foreign investors to Pakistan.
When asked Bahadar Khan said the forest of Dir have abundance of ash trees, whose furniture had big demand in European market. However, he was concerned the wealth was going in waste as the residents were using it as fuel for getting fire to cook their meals.
Similarly, he said some areas of the NWFP were also rich of Oak tress. "Furniture manufactured of the Oak wood tree has big demand in the European markets, United States and Australia etc," he maintained.