Product Description: Bamboo furniture are furniture made from bamboo trees. The furniture are used in homes, traditional restaurants, and in some offices and large commercial centers. The furniture include tables, chairs, shelves and other household items, Baskets, doors and windows can also be made from bamboo.
Market Potential: Wood and metal based household furniture are becoming very expensive from year to year. The price for a local made full set of sofa made in modern wood working enterprises ranges from Br 4,000 to Br. 30,000 in most urban areas of the country. These days it has become extremely difficult for a newly wed couple to acquire decent household furniture due to the high cost of the product. River second-hand furniture are expensive for many low and medium income families. The problem of acquiring household furniture by young people who secured their first job and who want to live independent of their parts is very acute since there are not many enterprises which make household furniture. Even if the furniture are available (they are imported from Addis Ababa), their prices are beyond the reach of most potential buyers.
Bamboo furniture are made from bamboo trees which is fund in the same localities in the western parts of the Region. The trees are also grown in back yards by farmers in the highland areas of South Gondar Zone. Bamboo furniture do not require much other inputs to produce. They do not even need nails to join different parts of a given furniture. In addition, they need simple machines for their processing. All these will make bamboo furniture less expensive to produce and possibly reasonably cheap to buy.
There are about 400,000 families living in the urban areas of the Amhara Region. Of these not more 30 percent have modern sets of furniture. The rest remaining 70 percent use traditional or home made furniture. For example, for sitting purposes, people use “medeb”. A raised place made of mud and built around the inner edge of the house. They rarely use tables, if they use, the tables are crudely made from unprocessed logs.
The prices of bamboo will be much lower than modern furniture; and if they are available in most urban centers of the Region, there will be enough buyers to make a bamboo furniture plant a financially viable venture. If we assume that at least 20 percent of the urban population of the Region will buy one set of sofa made from bamboo, the demand will be 780,000 sets, which will contain four pieces of furniture per set. This could be sufficient to make a bamboo furniture making enterprise a viable venture.
Source of Raw Materials: Bamboo trees grow extensively in the western parts of Awi Zone, East Gojjam Zones and along the border areas of Beneshangule Gumuz and North Gondar Zone. The trees also grow in the western parts of North Gondar Zone.
Process and technology: The major processes for producing bamboo chairs and tables are cooking of the raw bamboo, slitting, forming (setting the frame work, body preparation) and finishing.
Different designs can be incorporated into the product. The raw bamboo is cooked and dried. Then it is split and cut into required thickness and size by tools. The framework is then prepared. Bamboo splits are then inter-woven according to the design and required strength. Varnishes can be applied on the product to produce fine and attractive finish.
Equipment and Tools required for the plant include knives, hacksaw, drilling machine, grinding machine, LPG torch, vise, files, wood lathe, power saw, etc.
Estimated Investment: For a plant that will produce 2500 tables and 10,000 chairs per year, the investment will be:
§ Building/shade-250m2 at Br. 1500/m2= 375,000
§ Plant and Machinery 100,000
§ W. Capital 80,000
555,000
Benefits: Utilization of natural resources, saving of regional financial resources, possibility of export to other parts of the country
Location: Dengila, kosso-Ber, Bahir Dar.