Commerce Department Issues Preliminary Antidumping Determination on Wooden Bedroom Furniture From China
Today the U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA) announced the preliminary determination in the antidumping duty investigation of wooden bedroom furniture from the People's Republic of China (PRC) that was requested on October 31, 2004 by the American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade and several unions. ITA preliminarily found that producers/exporters have sold wooden bedroom furniture from China in the U.S. market at less than fair value, with margins ranging from 4.90 percent to 198.08 percent.
Because of the large number of Chinese furniture producers, ITA selected seven mandatory respondents in this investigation. The seven companies represent roughly 40 percent of all imports of wooden bedroom furniture from China to the United States. The preliminary dumping margins for these seven firms were as follows:
-Dongguan Lung Dong Furniture Co., Ltd. and Dongguan Dong He Furniture Co., Ltd = 7.04%
-Rui Feng Woodwork Co., Ltd., Rui Feng Lumber Development Co., Ltd., and Dorbest Limited (Dorbest Group) = 19.24%
-Lacquer Craft Manufacturing Company, Ltd. = 4.90%
-Markor International Furniture (Tianjin) Manufacture Co., Ltd. = 8.38%
-Shing Mark Enterprise Co., Ltd., Carven Industries Limited (BVI), Carven Industries Limited (HK), Dongguan Zhenzin Furniture Co., Ltd., and Dongguan Yongpeng Furniture Co., Ltd. = 6.59%
-Starcorp Furniture (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., Orin Furniture (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., and Shanghai Starcorp Furniture Co., Ltd. = 24.34%
-Tech Lane Wood Mfg. and Kee Jia Wood Mfg . (Tech Lane) = 9.36%
Companies not selected as mandatory respondents were given the opportunity to request separate-rate status by providing voluntary responses to ITA's Section A questionnaire. Separate-rate status entitles the exporter to an antidumping duty rate based on a weighted-average of the mandatory respondents' rates rather than the PRC-wide rate. ITA received 118 responses from companies claiming that their export activities are not controlled by the PRC government. As a result of the its analysis of the questionnaire and supplemental questionnaire responses submitted by the Section A respondents, ITA found that 82 of the 118 companies demonstrated that they were eligible to receive a separate rate. Each of these companies will receive a preliminary dumping margin of 10.92%. All companies not eligible for their own rate or deemed to be controlled by the PRC government will be assigned an antidumping rate of 198.08%.
Upon publication of the preliminary determination in the Federal Register next week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will begin to suspend liquidation of entries of subject merchandise and to collect a bond or cash deposit based on the margins in the Department's preliminary determination.
The ITA's Final Determination will be issued on November 5, 2004 and announced at noon the following day. The U.S. International Trade Commission's final injury determination is expected by December 20, 2004. If the ITC makes a final affirmative determination that imports were materially injuring, or threatening to materially injure, the domestic industry, ITA will issue an antidumping duty order and will instruct CBP to collect cash deposits on imports of subject merchandise.
The Commerce Department's Preliminary Determination can be viewed at the following link.
The press release issued by the Furniture Retailers of America, comprised of companies that opposes the antidumping petition, can be found at the following link: biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040618/dcf035_1.html.
|posted by Douglas N. Jacobson| Permalink 
