This means the county they are based in, Maramures (northern Romania), accounts for 13% of the total RON9.4 billion furniture market, ZF has calculated based on Trade Registry data.
Maramures is the biggest furniture hub of Romania, with companies registered there posting double the revenue of the second leading county, Bihor (NW Romania), in the ranking of the 50 largest furniture manufacturers.
“Baia Mare (Maramures county seat i.e.) has a furniture manufacturing tradition, with investments and plants continuing along the line of the plants and workshops built after the ’50s,” Catalin Chereches, Baia Mare mayor says.
Even though almost every such facility was gone after the fall of the communist regime, skilled people remained and that was the main attraction, he added.
The 50 largest furniture manufacturers in Romania posted more than RON4 billion revenue together, and only 12 of them made more than RON100 million revenue last year.
Other reasons why Baia Mare, and implicitly Maramures, is Romania’s furniture hub are the abundant supply of raw material (Maramures is the richest county in this department) and the easy access to foreign markets, because it is closer to Western Europe.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)