China stirs a furniture-trade furor
Chris Buckley/NYT Thursday, January 29, 2004
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For a start, most of the owners of the factories in the dispute are from Taiwan, with smaller numbers from Hong Kong and the mainland. Like many multinationals, they shifted production over the past decade to Shenzhen and Dongguan, sprawling industrial zones that are close to Lecong, where low-wage laborers from the countryside work long hours in the many factories.
As many as 90 percent of the 135 companies initially under investigation have owners from Taiwan, according to Chen Chiu, chairman of the Taiwan furniture makers' association and owner of the Homedeco Worldwide factory in Dongguan.
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"We're here because it's good business, and we sell to America because it's good business," he said. "We're not going to drop a stone on our own foot by not making a profit."
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Low labor costs, combined with improved skills and design, were central to the Chinese-based manufacturers' export growth, Chen said
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Zhou Jie, a manager for Sunlink Furniture, a sales and distribution company, said China, with its cheap, disciplined workers, was a natural home for labor-intensive jobs like wood carving and polishing. His company represents several wooden furniture exporters, he said, pointing to the sophistication of their finished products.
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"They're much cheaper than American-made tables, but the prices are reasonable based on costs," he said, patting a carved oak table. "In the U.S., you'd have to pay a blue-collar worker, say, at least $2,000 a month for this kind of work, but here you can get the same for $100."
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Just as most owners of China's wooden furniture factories do not come from the mainland, neither do the raw materials. In fact, manufacturers and wood importers said the disputed furniture was often made of wood shipped from the United States.
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Sales of U.S. hardwood lumber to China have grown sixfold in the past five years, reaching a value of $84 million in 2002, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. About two-thirds of that is used in making furniture, most of which is re-exported to the United States, according to Matthew Brady, a Beijing-based representative of the U.S. timber industry.
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Chen, the factory owner from Taiwan, said: "We import nearly all our wood from the United States, because that's what customers there want. So if they take away our trade, they'll also be taking away America's own exports. Production won't go back there."
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