A recent news article in Asian news resource VN Express stated the obvious when it referred to the large number of Chinese companies that have shifted production to Vietnam in recent years.

This, the paper reported, was a way for these firms to avoid duties that have been on Chinese made bedroom over the past 11 years.

For those who aren’t aware, furniture production began its shift to Vietnam even before the duties went into effect in early 2005. Since then they have risen from $364.4 million for calendar year 2004 to $3.142 billion in 2015. The top category – you guessed it – was wood bedroom furniture, which accounted for $923.6 million of its overall shipments.

China’s wood bedroom furniture shipments fell 79% during roughly the same period.

These are the type of numbers that both please and concern Vietnamese officials. On one hand, they are good for the overall Vietnam economy. But the large spike has had both government and industry officials fearful Vietnam will be the next target of an antidumping investigation by the U.S. government.

This latest round of concern, cited in the aforementioned new story published Aug. 25 is occurring just as U.S. officials begin discussions on whether the government should lift the duties on Chinese wooden bedroom furniture. During that discussion, Vietnam will undoubtedly come up as it did during the last sunset review of duties six years ago.

But as much as Vietnam was cited in that review, it never became the focus of an antidumping investigation.

(Source: furnituretoday.com  Author: Thomas Russell)