Preliminary antidumping rates set for 2008

By Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, February 22, 2010

WASHINGTON —

The U.S. Department of Commerce has issued preliminary results for the 2008 administrative review of Chinese wood bedroom furniture shipments.

The results, which affect the duty rates of 2008 wood bedroom furniture shipments to the United States, assign a preliminary duty of 20.36% to 13 of about 200 companies that were initially identified for a review. The companies that received that rate are:

• Dongguan Sunrise Furniture Co. Ltd., Taicang Sunrise Wood Industry Co. Ltd., Taicang Fairmount Designs Furniture Co. Ltd., and Meizhou Sunrise Furniture Co. Ltd.

• Longrange Furniture Co. Ltd.

• Langfang Tiancheng Furniture Co. Ltd.

• Shun Feng Furniture Co. Ltd.

• COE Ltd.

• Tianjin Fortune Furniture Co. Ltd.

• Transworld (Zhangzhou) Furniture Co. Ltd.

• Decca Furniture Ltd., aka Decca

• Dongguan Landmark Furniture Products Ltd.

• Winny Overseas Ltd.

• Dongguan Yihaiwei Furniture Ltd.

• Baigou Crafts Factory of Fengkai

• Zhongshan Gainwell Furniture Co. Ltd.

Thirty-four others have received what is known as an All China rate of 216%. Most received the high rate largely because they did not fully respond to government questionnaires about their wood bedroom shipments.

To read the names of the companies receiving the all-China rate, go online to /article/447903-Commerce_Department_issues_preliminary_review_of_2008_Chinese_bedroom_shipments.php?rssid=20044.

These figures are preliminary and won't be finalized until the Commerce Department completes the review process. The final results will be released in about 120 days.

Those rates, which are paid by the importers of record, will represent the balance owed on duties assigned for wood bedroom shipments from China. If the final duty comes in lower than the initial cash deposit rate, those importers are eligible for a refund.

Last September, Commerce also rescinded the administrative review for 125 other companies that had had their review requests withdrawn. Through this process, the companies negotiate a settlement with the petitioners to have their names taken off the review list. The process allows them to retain a separate rate status of around 7.24%.

The announcement is the latest development in an antidumping process that dates back to 2003. At that time, a group of domestic manufacturers asked the U.S. government to investigate the pricing of Chinese wood bedroom shipments, which were largely blamed for U.S. furniture production job losses. Using Indian wood bedroom shipments as a guide, the resulting investigation found that Chinese wood bedroom furniture was priced much lower than fair market values.

Initial duties were first assigned in June 2004 and finalized by early 2005.

Each year since then, the DOC has performed an audit, or administrative review of the duties to determine if any business practices of the Chinese producers have changed that would warrant an increase in their initial rate.

The latest administrative review used furniture shipments from the Philippines as a guide, because U.S. officials deemed the country a comparable producer of these goods.