Trade association applauds request for ITC review of Chinese hardwood plywood imports

TACOMA, Wash.—The president of a leading North American wood products trade association said his organization applauds a request for an International Trade Commission (ITC) review of Chinese hardwood plywood imports.

Dennis Hardman, president of APA—The Engineered Wood Association, an internationally accredited quality testing and inspection organization, said he thinks an ITC review would demonstrate that imported Chinese plywood often is improperly and in many cases even fraudulently labeled. And that poses serious potential product performance problems, he said.

Also at stake are U.S. jobs, since illegal subsidies give unfair advantage to importing countries and thereby damage the ability of domestic producers to compete, Hardman said. That’s a major concern in states like Oregon with substantial plywood industries. APA has provided import statistics and other relevant information to the office of Oregon’s U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, who has helped champion the campaign against illegally subsidized plywood imports.

The ITC review was requested March 6, 2007, by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana. The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) also has filed a World Trade Organization (WTO) hardwood plywood subsidies case against China.

APA represents manufacturers of softwood plywood, which is commonly used in construction and industrial applications. However, hardwood and softwood plywood compete in some applications, such as concrete forming and the furniture frame market. APA’s position, Hardman said, is that substandard plywood imports, whether hardwood or softwood, give the entire plywood industry a black eye.

Hardman said that although the requested ITC review targets only Chinese hardwood plywood and would cover a variety of concerns, such as dumping, illegal subsidies, tariff misclassification, and illegal logging, he hopes it would help draw greater attention to the significant problem of Chinese industry counterfeit trademarks, absence of trademarks, inaccurate grade claims, and substandard product performance.

"This is an especially serious issue in markets where products are used in load-bearing structural applications because it raises life-safety concerns," he said.

He cited recent APA sampling tests of non-trademarked imported Asian concrete form panels in which the average glue bond performance of the sample did not meet the minimum performance standard of U.S. Product Standard PS 1. Test results also indicated that the samples had an average load capacity approximately 40 percent below the level of APA PS 1 Plyform plywood.

The problem of substandard plywood imports extends to grades used for other applications as well, such as construction sheathing, and to other countries besides China, Hardman said. He said APA is continuing to conduct imported panel sample tests in an effort to help protect the market from poor quality products.

Plywood users and specifiers, meanwhile, should beware of imported products that may be misrepresented and that may not meet North American product and performance standards, he said.

Source: The APA—The Engineered Wood Association