There are about 3,000 companies active as furniture producers. The sector employed on average 60, 000 employees in 2017 (100,000 at the beginning of 2000s). Over the past 10 years the domestic wood resources and processing capacities attracted large international furniture players. The main foreign investments are still on the lower wood processing, with the scene dominated by the big Austrian players - Schweighofer, Kronospan and Egger.

In furniture, the investment volume grew steadily to almost 100 million euro in 2015, enabling furniture producers to meet increasingly refined consumer tastes. (USDA report 2017). The furniture production is estimated around 2.5 billion euro (2017). Thus, Romania remains an attractive investment destination taking in consideration that is among the players on the European furniture market who can still compete with Asian, mainly Chinese companies on the cost ground. According to a European study, only nine countries (namely, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Slovenia) still ranked above China in terms of revealed comparative advantage. Based on 2011 data, Poland had an RCA index of 5.3, Romania 3.61, against 2.12 – China. (at EU level, RCA was estimated at 1.15).

“Today Romania exports most of its production from secondary processing, rather than further capitalising on the value chain. But the country’s forestry and wood processing sector development potential is very good, insofar as productivity will increase” (PWC report, 2017).