Australian environmental flooring company, Style Limited has announced that it has been made exempt from antidumping tariff charges in the United States following a major investigation into multi-layered wood flooring imported from China.
This ruling strengthens the competitive position of Style’s recently launched strand woven Eucalyptus products in the USA market versus imported Chinese engineered wood products.
In November 2010, the Department of Commerce (DOC) initiated a large scale antidumping investigation on multilayered wood flooring from the People’s Republic of China.
The investigation involved over 200 Chinese companies and was petitioned by the Coalition for American Hardwood Parity, an association of US manufacturers of multilayered wood flooring. US import statistics indicated that this investigation concerned the import of around 16 million square metres of Chinese engineered wood, with an estimated value of $270 million.
On 18 October, 2011 the DOC’s final determinations were published in the US Federal Register, with Countervailing Duty (CVD) rates up to 26.73 per cent and Anti Dumping (AD) rates up to 58.84 per cent for multi layered wood flooring imported from China.
Style submitted requests for exclusion from the scope of the investigation, based on the unique and patented nature of its strand woven wood technology.
The Department of Commerce has now confirmed that Style’s strand woven Eucalyptus engineered flooring, manufactured at Style’s production sites in China, falls outside the scope of this investigation, and is therefore exempt from these duties.
