Exposition opens with green touch

　　THE 11th Shenzhen International Furniture Expo opened yesterday at the China Hi-Tech Fair Exhibition Center.With “Green Furniture, Leading the Trend of the 21st Century” as its theme, the exposition has attracted about 280 enterprises from around the country to set up displays, including furniture makers, and paint and machinery manufacturers.According to Dr. Xu Boming, director of the Shenzhen Furniture Research and Development Institute, all the exhibitors have met standards for toxic reduction required by the Central Government. Yrjo Kukkapuro, a designer from Finland who is also a judge at this year’s expo, told Shenzhen Daily he has seen big progress in the expo over the years. This is the third time he has participated in the exhibition.“Furniture with ecological thinking must be simple, economical and easy to build,” he said. “From the material perspective, we have to find substitutes to reduce the logging of rainforests.“In Finland and some European countries, recyclable plastics have been added to furniture production.”Huang Weiye, president of the Shenzhen Furniture Trade Association (SFTA), said the association was applying to establish a furniture industrial park.Huang said many furniture firms had complete production lines, but they were not specialized.He predicts the establishment of the park will reform the traditional furniture industry, making it more specialized in production and more efficient in the use of resources.Hou Kepeng, secretary general of SFTA, revealed a furniture research and development institute would be completed by March next year. It would be designed to offer, among other things, strong professional support to the furniture industry.Statistics show the furniture industry’s output in Shenzhen last year reached 16 billion yuan (US$1.93 billion), a growth of 20 percent over the previous year.