U.S. Furniture Retailers Hail Hooker Furniture's Formal Withdrawal From China Wooden Bedroom Furniture Trade Petition

Furniture World Magazine

Representatives of the Furniture Retailers of America (FRA) hailed this week's formal withdrawal of Hooker Furniture Corporation from the anti-dumping petition filed by a group of U.S. furniture manufacturers targeting Chinese wooden bedroom imports. The petitioner group, the American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade, informed U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans and U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) Secretary Marilyn Abbott of Hooker's withdrawal in a letter dated July 27, 2004. Three other major U.S. domestic furniture manufacturers -- Ashley Furniture, Furniture Brands International, and Standard Furniture Manufacturing -- have already expressed their opposition to the petition. A group of furniture manufacturers filed the petition with the ITC in October 2003, requesting duties as high as 440 percent, on over $1 billion dollars worth of wooden bedroom furniture from China. In January 2004, the ITC ruled that there was a "reasonable indication" that domestic producers of wooden bedroom furniture were "materially injured" as a result of imports from China. In June, the DOC imposed preliminary margins ranging from 4.90 percent to an astounding 198.08 percent. In a statement released earlier this year, Hooker Furniture announced the withdrawal of its support for the petition, stating, "Given the fact that domestic bedroom accounted for 4% of Hooker's total revenues in 2003, we have come to believe that the potential adverse effects on our relationships with our customers and international suppliers outweigh the benefits of continuing to actively support the petition." Yesterday's letter to Secretary Evans and Secretary Abbott was a formal announcement of Hooker's February 16 announcement in the press. "We are pleased with Hooker Furniture's formal withdrawal from this unjustified petition, but this case is far from over -- we have a long road ahead until the final U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) hearing," said Mike Veitenheimer, Furniture Retailers Association (FRA) Spokesperson and Vice President and General Counsel for The Bombay Company. "We won't stop until we beat this petition." "For some retailers and importers, the preliminary margins have been a disaster," said Veitenheimer. "Duties of any size are unjustified, and are just another tax that can raise prices and limit the choices for millions of people who want to buy quality, affordable bedroom furniture. Hooker understood this. Its move to withdraw support from the petition sets the way for other petitioners to take a leap and follow Hooker's example." "There is still time for those manufacturers who blindly supported this petition, which blatantly distorts the market, to wake up and do something to stop the damage that is unfolding. American workers and American consumers should not have to bear the brunt of protectionist acts." The DOC will make its final determination in early November. Rates may increase or decrease from the preliminary determination. The ITC will make its final determination in mid-December. The Furniture Retailers of America (FRA) is comprised of large and small retail companies throughout the U.S. formed to protect its customers from a group of domestic furniture manufacturers seeking to restrict consumer access to high quality wooden bedroom furniture by filing an anti-dumping petition with the U.S. International Trade Commission. FRA represents well over 3,500 retail outlets and 200,000 associates/employees nationwide. To read the public document of Hooker Furniture's formal withdrawal, go to: http://furnitureretailers.org/pdf/DOC009.pdf. For additional information on FRA, please visit http://www.furnitureretailers.org/.