JOHANNESBURG - The Department of Trade and Industry (dti) will recognise local design excellence at the 5th annual Furniture Design Competition which takes place later this month.
The competition will be held at the Johannesburg Homemakers Expo, set to take place at the Ticketpro Dome from February 22-25.
The Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Bulelani Magwanishe said that the rationale behind the Furniture Design Competition falls within one of the various directives of the Industrial Policy Action Plan (IPAP) that strives to elevate South Africa’s furniture manufacturing capabilities and enhance its competitiveness both locally and abroad.
“We have realised that furniture design is one area that is still very much in need of development and believe that once the concept of design is embraced in the industry, it will reinvent the way business is done. This competition will also ensure that we are able to identify and nurture new talent which we will introduce into this sector,” said Magwanishe.
He said that this year’s competition under the theme Storage, will require that competitors tap into their innovative reserves to create designs that will not only respond to people’s ever-changing space needs, but also to ways that they live their lives and make use of space for residence.
PHOTO: dti.gov.za
“The brief includes that the designs must promote innovation, be significantly made out of wood, movable, appeal to the export market and have a specific consumer target in mind,” said Magwanishe.
The winners of the competition will be announced on February 23.
The competition includes student and established manufacturer categories.
- African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Lindiz van Zilla