At the present time, it is difficult for all Ukrainian furniture makers – as well as for the entire domestic economy, as well as for the entire country. The Kompanit furniture factory in front-line Zaporizhzhia is exposed to enemy shelling more often than most of our cities, so it is risky to live and work here. But Kompanit does not stop furnishing, overcoming the specific difficulties caused by the enemy’s arbitrary annexation of the region to russia. Of course, neither the people of Zaporizhzhia, nor Ukraine, nor the world recognizes it, the unoccupied part of the region lives according to Ukrainian laws, but the fake “russianness” of the region, as the head of the commercial department of the company, Vadym Semenyuk, unexpectedly caused additional difficulties for the local business, in relations with foreign clients and partners. Some are playing it safe, fearing that they might run afoul of sanctions imposed on russia, and don’t want to do business with companies operating in territories russia claims as its own. That’s why Kompanit which is a long-time exporter of its products, had problems because of this. Certificates from the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry confirmed that the company is indeed located in the unoccupied territory of the region and remains Ukrainian. But that didn’t help either. We had to resort to warehouse relocation so that products for export were shipped from the territory of the neighbouring region. These are additional troubles.

– In the best times, Kompanit was one of the five largest domestic furniture manufacturers in the segment of economy-class goods. He sold many products abroad. Has the war greatly weakened your position?

– On the domestic market, it has definitely weakened. As I think, these are the positions of all Ukrainian furniture makers. And here, despite the war, we even increased exports last year, which largely compensated for our “slump” in the Ukrainian market. If before the war our exports were about 35 percent, now the ratio is 50 to 50. And this is despite the fact that we stopped shipping products to some countries – to Spain, Israel, and the Netherlands, where we had large customers. Due to last year’s significant increase in logistics costs and the impossibility of delivering goods to them by sea through the Odesa port. Currently, logistics at a price has already reached almost the pre-war level, but it has not yet been possible to return former customers – apparently, they are still afraid to take risks and do business with Ukrainian manufacturers for the time being. But Moldova, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, the Czech Republic, Germany, Poland, the Baltic countries are not afraid – we started selling more furniture to them.

– Your company is one of the few in UAFM to have FSC certification, which confirms its use of wood of legal origin. It is believed that such a certificate is another contribution to increasing exports. The company must constantly verify compliance with the requirements of this international organization, for which the FSC conducts annual audits. Did she conduct them during those war years as well, despite the risk of coming under shelling, which Zaporizhzhia experiences quite often?

– Yes, FSC conducted an audit of the company last year as well, and inspectors were already at the company this year. That is, she has not weakened her demandingness, even in view of the company’s current situation. But in practice, the presence of the FSC certificate is not yet a mandatory requirement for export sales, as well as a really effective factor for their increase, I will say this from the experience of our company. The company’s receipt of this certificate was the wish of one important partner for us, whose requirements it would be unwise to neglect.

– Part of the members of our Association began to actively use international exhibitions and various forms of their participation in order to increase exports, due to the “slump” of the domestic market in particular. For the first time this year, some did not pass even the most prestigious Milan iSalone, which they did not compete for even in better times.

– Unfortunately, our company was not among them. In better times, Kompanit was an active exhibitor at various international exhibitions. Every year, we necessarily participated in Kyiv and several European exhibitions, but for the second year in a row, we had to miss the exhibition events. However, we intend to resume exhibition activity. By the way, we annually release an updated catalogue of our products. Only the past became an exception.
Despite all the difficulties that the war threw at the company, despite the difficult conditions of overcoming them, the furniture factory “Kompanit” – and therefore its management – as well as practically all members of the Association, strongly demonstrated its civic position through the support of the army: it has an “underboss” the military unit, which was allocated three trucks, five minibuses and thirteen off-road vehicles, and in general helps materially in every way.