活动名称：木艺木趣国际研讨会暨展览会
时间地点：2011年10月20日，印度班加罗尔J N Tata多功能礼堂
演讲嘉宾：Jegatheswaran Ratnasingam

摘要：The Malaysian forest products sector provides employment for about 400,000 people, while contributing almost US$ 5 billion in foreign exchange earnings over the last several years. Although the production inputs, such as raw materials and labor, have experienced cost increments over the years, the industry has been able to retain its competitive edge, especially in the furniture manufacturing sector. The Malaysian furniture industry has emerged as the fastest growing sub-sector in the forest products sector, and continues to record impressive 20% annual growth over the last decade. With almost 3500 furniture manufacturing enterprises operating in the country in 2010, the furniture sector provides employment to a total of 87,000 workers. The unique industrial structure, organized within industrial clusters, has been able to keep the overhead costs significantly low, while at the same time providing the much needed flexibility in term of product diversity and volume production. This flexibility of the industry is derived from the small and medium enterprises, which make up about 85% of the total manufacturing enterprises, which are focused on specific operations, hence providing the much need economies of scale to ensure cost competitiveness. On the other hand, these small and medium enterprises operate as a single manufacturing unit, supporting a few large enterprises that are engaged in the marketing and product development activities. The large enterprises also serve as creditors to ensure a continuous financial line that will enable the small and medium enterprises to secure the much need production inputs, at competitive prices. Although, the successful industrial clusters can be found in many other nations such as Italy and Taiwan, the Malaysian furniture clusters are unique in the sense that the small and medium enterprises are often start-ups by the larger manufacturing enterprises, which ensures that the small and medium enterprises are able to cope up with the quality and production requirements of the large enterprises. In essence, The Malaysian furniture clusters have not only been able to develop the booming furniture industry in the country, but it has also contributed significantly to the development of entrepreneurship in the rural economies of the country.

关键词：Forest Industry Cluster, Furniture Industry, Entrepreneurship, Product Diversity, Development Economics

　　Jegatheswaran Ratnasingam博士现任马来西亚博特拉大学木材科学系副教授，拥有家具工程学位背景。他的主要研究方向是家具生产技术、木材加工和家具市场的发展趋势。最近，他对棕榈树和棕榈油等相关生物材料的家具业加工研究又有了新的见解与发现。