The minimal factor

TRADE: Italian furniture companies target India as the next big market.

The Italian presence at Interiors International India at the newly hatched Greater Noida International Expo Centre is a pointer at how seriously the furniture and furnishings industry there looks at India as an emerging market.

"For Italy," says Giancarlo Lamio, who is Italian trade commissioner in New Delhi, "India is one of the target markets of the future in a fast process of growth with a large number of potential utilisers of our products."

Not surprising, really, when Antonella Lanari quotes a (somewhat obscure) survey that reveals that in the period January-mid 2004, "India was one of the top importers of furniture around the world".

Lanari is international promotion manager of the Federlegno-Arredo, which is a federation of wood, cork, furniture and furnishings manufacturers in Italy. Members of the federation have increased their exports to India by 25 per cent, albeit from a very small base, but for the world's third-largest supplier of furniture (after China and South-east Asia), the emergence of India (despite high import duties and a poor distribution network) is the future.

"In 2007," says Lanari, "we will bring a group of companies wanting to discuss the internationalisation of their products with their Indian counterparts, whether by way of production or assembly here."

The growing building industry and infrastructure is the obvious lure "" offices, hotels, condominiums, theatres, airports; "Italian furniture companies are looking forward to working in the contract area with the Indian building and infrastrucure industry," confirms Lanari.

China is today the largest manufacturer of mid- and low-price furniture in the world, and it is also the largest market for fake brands, something that upsets the Italian trade commissioner no end. "We want partner countries to respect rules," he rues.

"Whenever we find illicit copies, we ask the governments to stop trade in those products through different levels of intervention, including WTO guidelines. But it's a long struggle, which is why we always ask design companies to register their designs. Prevention is easier than fighting a battle afterwards."

One solution, says Lanari, is to indicate that Italian design "" whether in furniture or fashion and jewellery "" is part of the Italian lifestyle. "We're hosting a top group of Chinese designers in Italy, to visit our leading furniture, tiles and marble designers, and to see how our designs are part of our lifestyle," she says.

Italian design is merely 55 years old, emerging from the wreck of the second world war to build an entire industry around architectural and industrial design.

It's clean shapes and minimalism were derived from an escape from fussy details, but Lanari says that in recent times there is a move towards "very clean surfaces and shapes, but with some attempt at the decorative and the colourful".

"Made in Italy" furniture is currently valued at ¤37,000 million, of which 32.4 per cent (or ¤12,000 million) was exported from Italy in 2005. The size of the units, however, tends to be small, and in 2005, the industry employed 4,10,000 workers in 81,000 firms. No wonder the interest in India is "expensive" to begin with.

"Companies with a vision can see this is the next market," says Lamio, "and even though it is a big investment for them, they're still coming to participate in Indian fairs."

Already, names like AramCucine, Saporiti, Flos, Alessi and B&B are becoming commonplace in India. At the Greater Noida expo, 12 companies participated, and Lanari says 40 designers will be part of the Index Fair in Mumbai in September.

The way forward? "Joint ventures, probably," says Lanari. Less could definitely be more for India's fledgling furniture industry.