A tale of two ongoing stories
Ray Allegrezza, Editor in Chief -- Furniture Today, February 11, 2007
This past Wednesday was surreal. Within an hour, two pivotal stories came to light. First, we broke the news detailing the U.S. Department of Commerce's preliminary determination of antidumping duties for certain manufacturers and importers of wooden bedroom furniture, stemming from the DOC's first administrative review.
Within minutes of posting that story, I was sitting in our conference room with Bob Shaak, chief operating officer of North Carolina-based Linwood Furniture, who told me about his company's plans to bring furniture jobs and furniture making back to North Carolina.
On one hand, you have a group of domestic furniture manufacturers using the laws of our land to wage a battle against the influx of Chinese-produced wooden bedroom furniture, goods the DOC has concluded are being dumped in this country.
In the case of Linwood, you have a highly focused domestic manufacturer who believes there's still a market out there for better-quality, bench-made domestic furniture, and believes they can successfully serve it.
Each story is worth following, and following closely.
My phone starting ringing as soon as the DOC story hit. Retailers and suppliers wanted to know what would happen now.
While some of the DOC duties are significant — two companies, for example, were slapped with respective duties of 58.84% and 74.69% — the key thing to remember at this point is the word "preliminary."
One of those companies, Starcorp, maintains the DOC's findings are "factually unfounded," and says it's confident its duty will be "revised substantially downward in the final determination."
Time will tell. However, if the duties of both Starcorp and Dare Group, which received the 58.84% duty, are in fact substantially lower when the DOC makes its final determination this summer, the picture could change dramatically.
By then, Linwood will have launched its first collection under its own name, aptly called American Classic. The collection, which will feature solid-cherry bedroom and dining room, will be the first of what Linwood hopes will be a growing family of domestically made furniture.
"We think we can be competitive with collections of furniture made here in North Carolina," Shaak said.
Stay tuned. Both stories are just beginning to unfold.
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