Increasing the prices of cheaper quality plywood due to high timber prices have been helping the growing demand of domestically produced MDF resulting in the improvement of capacity utilization. As per the market report, the capacity utilization of Indian MDF manufacturing units has reached 55 % for the last 3 months, which was bottomed to 40 per cent during the beginning of Financial Year 20.
Import of MDF has also been going down since last 3 to 4 months and has been reported to drop by 50% since last 3 to 4 months. MDF importers opine that the drop in imported MDF volume has been noted due to increasing prices of MDF in the overseas market. They say that prices of MDF in Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea and Thailand have been up to 15% during the last 3 months; hence it has become dearer than Indian produced.
During an interaction with The Ply Reporter Mr Krupesh Thakkar, MD, Rushil Decor said, “If you consider countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, they provide holistic training to their manpower. This differentiates the quality. The technology, machinery used is the same as in India, only the way a project is carried out is different. What they can produce, we can produce here as well. As far as the prices are concerned, the inventory carrying cost can be managed in India as well. We also charge a 5% premium cost just like them. So, import replacement is certainly possible and will happen”. He further added that Indian MDF companies have started exporting to Srilanka, Bangladesh and are opening new avenues in exports due to the quality offered. And this wouldn’t have been possible if Indian MDF companies were not manufacturing good quality
Mr Avtar Singh Bhullar of Century Prowud MDF said that we did not see any hard time for production due to lack of demand. In today’s time, we are almost running on full capacity. Other Indian MDF producers such as Balaji Action Buildwell, Green Panel, Pioneer Panel, Shirdi Industries etc are also reported to improve their capacity utilization in recent month.