95 Chinese furniture manufacturers won't have 2010 duty rates reviewed

They'll keep initial antidumping rates on imports to U.S.

Thomas Russell -- Furniture Today, October 24, 2011

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Commerce has agreed to rescind an annual administrative review of 95 Chinese wood bedroom manufacturers for shipments made during calendar year 2010, meaning those companies won't have their antidumping duty rates raised.

The list of companies, which includes well known producers such as Art Heritage International, COE Ltd., Fine Furniture Shanghai, Fairmont Designs and Dalian Huafeng Furniture, was published in Monday's Federal Register.

The DOC has decided to rescind the review of these companies, in whole or in part, because the U.S. companies that requested a review of these firms agreed to withdraw their request within 90s days of an initial notice announcing the review.

The annual review determines whether the factories in question will have their shipments scrutinized more thoroughly for the calendar year in question. Based on that review, a manufacturer could receive a higher or lower duty based on their initial cash deposit rate, which in many cases is 7.24%.

If the review determines the final duty is higher, then the importer of goods from that particular factory would pay the difference in duty for that year's shipments.

The duties are the government's way to level the playing field for U.S. manufacturers injured by unfairly priced imports of wooden bedroom furniture from China.

Monday's Federal Register notice also lists the names for producers that did not receive a separate rate certification for the 7.24% rate, and thus will be part of the PRC wide entity, which receives a duty of 216.01%.

In addition, it has set a preliminary duty rate of 41.75% for Tube-Smith Enterprises.

Interested parties are invited to submit written comments no later than 30 days following the Oct. 24 publication date of the preliminary results of the review. The final results are expected to be published in late February.

For a full list of the companies whose review has been rescinded in full or in part, visit:

http://frwebgate3.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/TEXTgate.cgi?WAISdocID=GBNhvw/0/1/0&WAISaction=retrieve

The link also names the companies listed at the PRC wide rate of 216.01%.