Forest Products: Trade Policy Highlights


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	FOREST PRODUCTS TRADE POLICY HIGHLIGHTS - DECEMBER 2003
	China to Amend Solid Wood Packing Material (SWPM) Regulations
	On December 8, China notified the World Trade Organization that it intends to amend its regulations to require that all SWPM entering China be either heat-treated or fumigated with methyl bromide and marked accordingly. For countries that have pinewood nematode (e.g. the United States, Canada and Portugal), the SWPM must be heat-treated. The proposed date for adoption is March 1, 2004. China’s regulations are based on the International Plant Protection Convention’s Guidelines for Regulating Wood Packaging Material. In 2002, the United States exported $22.1 billion worth of goods to China. The United States should be well positioned to meet the new requirements, having set up the basis of the necessary program in 2001 when the European Union began requiring treatment of SWPM.

	Commerce Initiates Antidumping Investigation of Wooden Bedroom Furniture
	On December 11, the Department of Commerce announced the initiation of an antidumping duty investigation of wooden bedroom furniture from China, with alleged dumping margins of 158.74 to 440.96 percent. The petition was filed by the American Furniture Manufacturers Committee for Legal Trade to address a surge in imports of low-priced wooden bedroom furniture from China. Imports of wooden bedroom furniture from China have increased from $169 million in 1999 to $817 million in 2002. Imports through the first nine months of 2003 are up 43 percent over the same period last year. U.S. exports of hardwood logs and lumber have benefited from the Chinese demand, increasing from $76 million in 1998 to $254 million in 2002, but have not been sufficient to offset the estimated $500 million annual decline in sales to domestic manufacturers.

	The International Trade Commission (ITC) Responds to NAFTA Panel Remand on Softwood Lumber
	On December 15, 2003, the ITC reaffirmed its injury determinations in connection with the NAFTA panel remand of its antidumping and countervailing duty investigations of softwood lumber from Canada. The NAFTA panel had remanded the ITC’s threat of material injury determination, indicating that on remand the ITC should consider such things as the contribution to threat of injury caused by the domestic industry itself, the impact of third country imports, engineered wood products, domestic production constraints, etc. After including these items in its analysis, ITC reaffirmed its determination that the industry in the United States is threatened with material injury by imports of softwood lumber from Canada that are subsidized or sold in the United States at less than fair value.