Plywood makers criticize China.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

Hardwood plywood manufacturers in Oregon are crying foul when it comes to imports from China, and on Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden took up their cry.

Wyden wrote letters to three federal agencies asking them to investigate alleged illegal and unfair practices by Chinese competitors that threaten U.S. hardwood plywood manufacturers.

The decorative plywood - in cherry, walnut or oak, for example - enhances cabinets, furniture and interior moldings. Unlike softwood plywood, the hardwood variety is not used in construction.

Oregon-based companies account for roughly 70 percent of the hardwood plywood manufactured in the United States and directly employ several thousand workers, according to industry sources. Many more Oregonians work for suppliers or related companies, the sources said.

"This is high-stakes stuff," said Wyden, who serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

"What's at stake are a lot of good-paying, family-wage jobs in our state, certainly in the southwestern part of the state," he said.

Imports of hardwood plywood from China into the United States have spiked in recent years, rising from 442,000 cubic meters in 2003 to a projected 2.3 million cubic meters this year, according to figures collected by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Over the same period, imports from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Europe have been relatively flat, said Steve Reister, chairman of the board of the Hardwood Plywood & Veneer Association, a trade group based in Reston, Va.

Two U.S. mills that made the product were shuttered in the past six months, Reister said. Neither facility was in Oregon, but Oregon mills could be the next to go, if China's unfair manufacturing and trade practices are allowed to continue, said Reister and executives at Springfield-based Timber Products Co. and Eugene-based States Industries.

The local producers' biggest complaint is that Chinese manufacturers aren't held to the same environmental and quality standards as products manufactured in the United States.

"If you buy a TV, it has to meet American standards, said Roger Rutan, a Timber Products vice president. "If you want to bring in hardwood plywood from China, you know what standards you have to meet? None."

"Here in the United States we manage our forest lands; we've spent millions on pollution controls at our plants and facilities," he said. "None of those things happen at the plants in China."

Timber Products said it's the second-largest producer of hardwood plywood in the United States. The company has about 1,400 employees, with 900 to 1,000 in Oregon.

The absence of quality standards for imports from China not only endangers U.S. producers, but potentially U.S. consumers, too, said Reister, the industry spokesman.

U.S. manufacturers are under increasing pressure to lower the levels of formaldehyde in their products because the International Agency on Research on Cancer has listed it as a potential carcinogen, Reister said.

Chinese imports aren't held to the same standards, said Reister and Bill Powell, marketing manager at States Industries, which has produced hardwood plywood for 40 years. States Industries employs about 400 workers, 325 of them in Eugene and 75 at a facility in Mocksville, N.C.

`The Chinese material that's coming in doesn't meet those (standards) at all, and it's being sold and used in secondary manufacture of cabinets and furniture, so there's no protection for the consumer,' Powell said.

U.S. producers also are concerned that Chinese imports are sold at artificially low prices because of what they say are subsidies from the Chinese government, fraudulent labeling and illegally harvested logs.

A recent report by the Office of Industries of the U.S. International Trade Commission said that "a relatively large portion of China's log imports may be from questionable sources," and estimates that "50 percent of China's hardwood log imports from Russia and West Africa are from suspicious or illegal sources."