01Vietnam
Why Vietnam.
Most agencies source across Asia. We know Vietnam.
2nd
furniture exporter in the world.
0%
customs duty into the European Union under the EVFTA agreement.
2026
timber traceability becomes mandatory in Europe.
A country that chose the world.
Not a cheaper China. An economy that opened in 1986, and that every government since has pointed at the world market.
Open, and staying open
Trade is worth nearly twice Vietnam’s GDP, which makes it one of the most open economies there is. The direction has held for forty years. A buyer planning a three-year programme needs a country that will look the same in three years.
The capital arrived first
The world’s large manufacturers have been moving lines here for a decade: electronics in the north, and in 2025 a LEGO factory in Bình Dương, next to the furniture clusters. A buyer who sources here follows the capital. It is not a bet ahead of it.
In work: 53 millionOne dot, one million people
A hundred million people, and young
102 million people, a labour force of 53 million, a median age around thirty-three. The labour force still grows every year, where China’s has begun to shrink.
A coastline built for export
3,260 kilometres of coast. Cái Mép takes the largest container ships afloat and sails direct to Rotterdam and Hamburg, with no transshipment in Singapore. The southern clusters are a few hours from the quay by road, and the quay is one voyage from Europe.
Sources: National Statistics Office of Vietnam, 2025 (growth as first estimated); wood exports, Ministry of Agriculture and Environment.
What Vietnam actually makes.
Outdoor
Quy Nhơn and Bình Định are the world’s outdoor bench: teak, acacia, eucalyptus, finishes tested against sun and monsoon. Garden ranges leave for Europe every week of the year.
Solid wood indoor
Bình Dương and Đồng Nai: dining, bedroom, storage, cabinetry. Plantation acacia and rubberwood, FSC on request, machining held to French tolerance sheets.
Hand work
Rattan, upholstery, hand sanding, hand finishing. Vietnam still has the hand skills, and hand skills are what a factory photograph never shows you.
And the clusters next to it
- FurnitureThe lane we run hardest
- Home textilesNam Định · Thái Bình
- Ceramics and basketryThe delta villages
- GarmentHồ Chí Minh · Long An
- FootwearĐồng Nai
Why not elsewhere.
Against China
China is faster at very large scale, and more expensive. Tariff and origin risk are now priced into every order a French buyer signs there.
Against India and Indonesia
They have the timber. Vietnam has the timber, the finish, and thirty years of export routine behind it.
On paper
EVFTA removes the duty into Europe, and plantation acacia and rubberwood make a defensible EUDR file. No other large Asian producer offers both.
On origin
What you buy must be made in Vietnam, not merely passed through it. We document the factory, the machines and the people, so the origin survives an audit.
On language
We are Vietnamese and French, and we work in both languages. Prices are negotiated in Vietnamese, and specifications and contracts are drawn up in French and in Vietnamese. Nothing is agreed through an interpreter, and in the provinces we are a known name rather than a foreign buyer passing through.
Cost, skill and paperwork, in one country.
France first, and for a long time: its specification sheets, its shelf calendars, its buyers. It is the market we know properly.
The wood itself.
Almost none of it comes from natural forest. That is the point.
AcaciaKeo
Plantation-grown across the centre and the north, cut on a seven-to-ten-year cycle. The workhorse: outdoor frames, mid-range indoor, FSC available on request.
RubberwoodCao su
A by-product of rubber estates at the end of their tapping life: pale, stable, and easy to justify to an auditor. Dining, bedroom, cabinetry.
EucalyptusBạch đàn
Dense plantation timber for slats, panels and outdoor structure. It grows in the same provinces as the acacia, often on the same hillside.
TeakTếch
Imported and certified, never wild-cut. Reserved for premium outdoor, where nothing else survives twenty summers unprotected.
Rattan and bambooMây, tre
Still woven by hand, village by village. It is the craft that keeps a Vietnamese lounge range from looking pressed out of a mould.
Engineered panelVán công nghiệp
Plywood, MDF and veneer produced locally, for flat-pack programmes built around container economics.
The plantation lotplanted, not natural forest
The factorydocumented from the lot on
The European origin filepossible because of both
Where it is made
- Bình Dương11°09'N 106°42'EIndoor, cabinetry
- Bình Định14°00'N 109°00'EOutdoor, at scale
- Quy Nhơn13°47'N 109°13'EOutdoor, teak and acacia
- Đồng Nai10°57'N 107°00'EVolume, panel and veneer
Where it leaves
- Cát Lái10°46'N 106°47'ECity terminal, feeder services
- Cái Mép10°32'N 107°01'EDeep water, direct sailings to Europe
The coastline is drawn simplified; the positions are the real ones.
When it is made
the following year
Tết
Sep – NovProduction for the outdoor season
Dec – FebSailing, around Tết
Mar – AprShelf date in France
The road book.
Where a buying trip actually goes: four stops and one detour, what history left in each, and what it changes for your order.
-
Ho Chi Minh CitySài Gòn
What history leftA merchant city before it was a capital. Chợ Lớn, the old Chinese quarter, has traded up and down the Mekong since the late eighteenth century, and the city still puts business first.
For your orderSince 1 July 2025 the city takes in Bình Dương and Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu: most factories you will visit, and the deep-water port at Cái Mép, now sit inside it. Older contracts and certificates carry the former province names — check they match the new address.
-
Bình DươngSince July 2025, part of Ho Chi Minh City
What history leftRubber estates first, industry after. The Vietnam–Singapore Industrial Park opened here in 1996, and furniture plants followed until the province became the country’s furniture capital.
For your orderSolid wood indoor, in large plants, with rubberwood from the estates the province grew up on. VIFA EXPO’s halls are here too: a fair and a factory fit in the same day.
-
Đồng NaiBiên Hòa · since July 2025, together with Bình Phước
What history leftBiên Hòa opened the first industrial zone in the south in 1963. Sixty years of factory work on the same ground.
For your orderVolume, panel and veneer, on long lines. Ask for minimum quantities before samples, not after.
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Quy NhơnSince July 2025, in Gia Lai province
What history leftChampa towers from the twelfth century stand in town, and the Tây Sơn brothers rose from the hills behind it in the eighteenth. Those hills are now acacia and eucalyptus plantations.
For your orderOutdoor furniture at scale. The central coast has its own rainy season, September to December, with storms: outdoor production for the spring is planned around it.
-
Kim BồngHội An · since July 2025, part of Đà Nẵng
What history leftCarpenters from the north settled Kim Bồng in the fifteenth century and worked on much of the old port town across the river.
For your orderNot where a retail programme is made. Where you see that hand finishing in Vietnam is a trade with five hundred years behind it, not a line on a quote.
Before you land
- Names
Family name first, and Nguyễn is the name of roughly four Vietnamese in ten. Use the last word of the name: Mr Nguyễn Văn An is anh An, or ông An if he is older.
- The first visit
A card given with both hands, a walk through the floor, often a meal. The figures come at the second meeting.
- Zalo
Business runs on Zalo more than on email. Agree there, then confirm every figure in writing.
- Tết 2027
Saturday 6 February. Factories stop for one to two weeks and take longer to return to full speed. The fairs open three weeks later.
- Seasons
Rain from May to November in the south, storms from September to December on the central coast. Wood moisture is checked in every season, hardest in the wet one.
- Writing
Vietnamese has used the Latin alphabet since the seventeenth century, so every sign is readable. The accents are not decoration: copy addresses and names exactly.
02The other direction
Vietnam is also somewhere to sell.
Our route runs from Vietnam to France. The other direction is a door we keep open rather than a lane we run: one French house at a time, case by case — wine and spirits first.
The duty is coming down
European wine met a 50% duty entering Vietnam before the trade agreement opened in 2020. Under EVFTA that line is being stepped down to zero across the agreement’s schedule, with spirits following behind it — the same treaty advantage that carries furniture the other way, just pointing in the opposite direction.
A market being built now
A hundred million people, a median age around thirty-three, and an urban middle class that has learned to read a label. French wine is not a curiosity in Hồ Chí Minh City any more; it is a category with shelf space.
What would actually stop a French house
Not demand. The importer of record, the licence, the Vietnamese label, the certificate of free sale, and a customs desk that decides in a language nobody at your end reads. That part needs someone to hold it, the way we hold the tie with a factory on furniture.
The same team, the other way
The team that visits a factory in Bình Dương knows the other side of the counter too: both languages, both customs desks, the importers. A French file into Vietnam goes through the same hands.
Case by case. If you produce in France, let’s talk.