Italy's Pesaro Urbino province keen to promote its furniture industry in Sharjah

"We are participating in the Italian Lifestyle in the Emirates Exhibition to promote our province's well-known furniture industry in Sharjah," said Ms Gisella Bianchi, General Manager, Special Agency of the Pesaro Urbino Chamber of Commerce for the promotion of international activities.

"Though we are in Sharjah for the first time, we are actively exploring possibilities of collaboration between Pesaro and Urbino-based furniture companies and similar companies in Sharjah," she added.

The Pesaro-Urbino province lies on 2,893 sq km territory, in the northern part of the Marche region in Italy, and comprises the towns of Pesaro, Colbordolo, Lombaroccio, Monteciccardo, Montellabate, Sant'Angelo in Zizzola and Tavullia.

Both Pesaro and Urbino have economies with very high growth rate and are engaged in the manufacture of furniture, Teflon kitchen utensils, aluminum fixtures, textiles and clothing, and fibre glass yachting.

"Some of the world famous furniture brands like Scavolini, febal and Berloni, are all based in the Pesaro-Urbino province. We are well known all over the world for bent glass furniture, which is manufactured using laser," Ms Bianchi said.

"We are at the moment assessing the Sharjah market to see as to what kind of collaboration the furniture and other companies in Pesaro-Urbino can have with companies here.

We are looking at either Italian furniture companies setting up shop in Sharjah or furniture companies from Sharjah importing furniture from our province. Not only furniture, our province is also known for its furniture manufacturing machines," she added.

Ms Bianchi said that though Pesaro-Urbino's annual furniture exports exceed 100 million Euros, lately, the Gulf market's share in it has fallen substantially. She attributed this to Malaysian and Chinese furniture companies flooding the markets in the region.

"The Malaysian and Chinese furniture companies are producing furniture that are cheaper than the ones produced by companies in our province. Sometimes they are exact copies of the one's manufactured by Italian companies. This may have affected our market here," Ms Bianchi admitted.

"However, our furniture companies are not worried and we are not competing with them. We believe that our market is different. People pay more for furniture from our province because of its quality as well as style. We believe that there is a serious market for us here in Sharjah," she added.

Ms Bianchi said that the Chamber, besides vigorously promoting its world famous furniture industry, is going all the way out to provide support to its medium and small scale enterprises from other sectors to enter in to collaborations with Sharjah-based companies.

"Besides the furniture industry, we are equally keen on our small and medium sector enterprises from other sectors gaining a foothold in Sharjah. Internationally, these enterprises need more of the Chamber's support than anyone else," Ms Bianchi said.

Ms Bianchi added that the Pesaro Urbino Chamber of Commerce will return to participate in the Exhibition's next edition and probably will occupy more space then.

The four-day Italian Lifestyle in the Emirates Exhibition concludes on May 28.