That ambition could gain steam this year, when IKEA expects to open a furniture factory near Shanghai, the company's second in China.

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Ajjor owns a furniture factory within eyeshot of the Gaza-Israel border and can point out the gate through which not too long ago his products were shipped to Israel.

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Hasan, who declined to give his last name, was a furniture factory worker in Aleppo but fled the city after the war intensified, work dried up and prices sharply rose.

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Soon afterwards, he snapped up a disused factory and began turning out furniture.

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In the late 1990s Vaughan-Bassett invited one of the largest Chinese producers, Lacquer Craft, to its factory to videotape production of bedroom furniture so that it could produce bedroom furniture in China for Vaughan-Bassett to import and resell.

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The Forte furniture company, founded when Mr. Formanowicz bought an insolvent state-run factory in 1992, exports about 80% of its products, nearly all to countries in the euro zone.

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