Study on measures for promoting woodenware industry in Korea

As of 2008, there are 70 or more woodenware related companies in Namwon, and they are accounted for 80% of the total production of woodenware in Korea. These companies installed Lacquer Art Museum, Wood Craft Complex, Lacquer Research Institute, and Lacquer Art Studio and planted lacquer tree in approximately 81 ha from 1997 to 2006. However, the demand for the utensils for ancestral rites that increased from the mid 1980's has been decreasing gradually from the late 1990's along with the decrease of demand for dining table due to the sharp increase of imports from China and the change of table and ceremonial culture replacing traditional dining table. Under the circumstances, a survey was conducted with woodenware makers located in Namwon, the typical woodenware industry area of Korea, in order to find out the problems in management and seek for the ways to make improvements. As a result, most companies excluding few answered that the demand for the utensils for ancestral rites and the dining tables decreased sharply and expected it to decrease continuously. The purchase price of the raw timber is increasing each year, but the companies could not increase the price fearing that it would shrink consumer confidence. A number of companies were planning to decrease the production of or upgrade their products such as the utensils for ancestral rites and the dining tables in the future and also to increase the production of utensils for living that consume relatively less wood. Most companies decided to overcome difficult situations by diversifying the design and upgrading the quality considering that the woodenware is environment-friendly but experienced a number of difficulties such as the case where imports are circulated as domestic products, difficulty in securing skilled manpower, lack of financial resource for automated facilities, and decrease of demand.