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Innerspring group files petition

By David Perry -- Furniture Today, January 11, 2004

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Seeking to obtain relief from what it describes as a rising tide of innerspring and box spring imports from China, the American Innerspring Manufacturers trade group has filed a safeguard petition with the U.S. International Trade Commission.

AIM, whose members account for about 75% of U.S. innerspring production, is seeking total duties of at least 45% on Chinese innerspring units. The present duty is about 6%.

A hearing on the petition is set for Feb. 19 at the ITC. If its commissioners support the petition, the ITC could have a recommendation for President Bush on this issue by the end of March, and it would be up to Bush to proclaim increased duties or other import restrictions.

The petition asks the ITC to investigate whether innerspring units "are being imported into the United States from the People's Republic of China in such increased quantity … as to cause or threaten to cause market disruption to the domestic producers."

The petition does not apply to finished beds imported from China.

Arthur Grehan, AIM executive director, said the group's members "are very concerned about rising innerspring imports from China and the damage they are causing U.S. manufacturers of innersprings. We believe the International Trade Commission will recommend action under the safeguard authority, and we trust the President to react in a manner that will preserve U.S. jobs."

The petition says that annualized imports from December 2001 to December 2002 "were up by well over 800%." It adds, "This increase has disrupted the U.S. market for innersprings, causing significant injury to the members of AIM. Imports continue to increase overall and are expected to continue to grow significantly throughout 2004."

The petition also says that the estimated value of U.S. innerspring production "approaches $600 million each year and is directly responsible for over 3,200 jobs."

In a press release describing the petition, AIM didn't release the actual number of Chinese innerspring imports. According to import data from the U.S. Customs Service, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the U.S. International Trade Commission, shipments of "uncovered innerspring units" from China were 44,000 in 2001 and 60,000 in 2002 and were up to 121,000 in the first six months of 2003.

Those figures represent a small fraction of the U.S. innerspring market. In 2002, the last year for which data is available, about 21.5 million adult-sized mattresses were shipped in the country, according to the International Sleep Products Assn. Most of those mattresses had innerspring units.

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