Panel makers hail furniture antidumping petitioner.

More than 120 representatives of the Composite Panel Assn. and Composite Wood Council, most of whose businesses have been negatively impacted by the growth of Chinese furniture imports, cheered antidumping spokesman Wyatt Bassett. Basset delivered one of two keynote speeches during the joint associations' fall meeting held Oct. 5-8 in Toronto.

Bassett, executive vice president of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture of Galax, VA, provided an update on the antidumping petition that the American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade plans to file soon against Chinese wood bedroom furniture makers. Bassett said his father, John Bassett III, the mover and shaker of the group that is composed of 31 North American furniture makers, was in Washington, DC, that day to brief 30, congressmen on the antidumping petition.

Bassett said China is on pace to account for more than 50% of U.S. wood bedroom furniture this year; China's share of U.S. bedroom furniture stood at 21% in 2000. Between 2000 and 2002, he said domestic manufacturers' shipments of bedroom furniture fell 21%. Bassett said the antidumping petition will contend that Chinese manufacturers are selling their products in the United States at less than cost and that they are being artificially propped up by subsidies from China's government and China's manipulation of its currency.