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According to the news from Ottawa, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (Canadian International Trade Tribunal) preliminarily ruled that import tariffs on upholstered furniture from China and Vietnam will be levied at 295.5% and 101.5%, respectively.

The Canadian International Trade Tribunal stated that there are "reasonable signs" that dumping and subsidies for upholstered seats made in China and Vietnam have caused or are causing damage to the domestic furniture manufacturing industry in Canada.

The Canadian International Trade Tribunal will continue its investigation and is expected to announce the final results before September 2.

The Canada Border Services Agency wrote to importers that they will impose temporary tariffs on related products on May 5.

28 Chinese manufacturers will be levied at rates ranging from 20.65% to 226.45%, and 7 Vietnamese manufacturers will be levied at rates ranging from 17.44% to 89.77%.

According to the Canadian Special Import Measures Act, importers must declare their company's temporary tariffs on any goods under investigation imported into Canada. If importing products that require temporary tariffs, the importer has the responsibility to notify customs to ensure that the goods are properly declared and correctly Pay taxes.

The court statement will be issued within 15 days. The statement outlines the information on which the decision is based and will be published on the Canadian Border Services Agency website.

The Canadian Border Services Agency initiated the investigation in December last year. The cause was Palisa Furniture's trade lawsuit and was supported by other Canadian manufacturers Elran Furniture Ltd., Jaymar Furniture Corp., EQ3 Ltd. and Fornirama Inc. .

This move is intended to restrict the import of leather furniture from China and Vietnam. According to data from the Canadian Border Services Agency, Canada’s annual market size for imports of such goods is US$675 million.

Optimistic about the rapid rise of Chinese national brands

A few days ago, He Xiaoqing, president of Kearney's Greater China region and global partner, was interviewed by a reporter from Economic Daily on hot topics such as the rise of the national tide brand and consumer industry trends.

In response to the discussion of "consumption upgrade" and "consumption downgrade", He Xiaoqing, for example, said that in the first half of last year, some sports shoes in the range of 100 yuan to 200 yuan were relatively popular, mainly due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, and some consumers tended to Conservative.

This also reflects the gradual decline in Chinese consumers’ spending intentions and spending power last year. However, there is a relatively obvious trend of "consumption backflow" in China's consumer market, especially the rapid growth of high-end consumer goods. It is expected that consumption will take up a larger proportion of China's economic growth this year.

Under the epidemic, the consumer industry has seen bright spots such as deepening digitalization, paying more attention to healthy living, and favoring modern lifestyles. He Xiaoqing believes that these trends have already appeared before the epidemic. For example, in the past few years, packaged food and beverages have grown slowly, but health beverages have grown faster. Affected by the epidemic, these trends have become more obvious.

For enterprises, the task of digital transformation is becoming more urgent, and at the same time, the overall trend is to transform from low value-added to high value-added. For example, OEM companies turn to brand building; local companies increase innovation and shift from following to leading; and so on.

In the next three to five years, Kearney is very optimistic about the investment opportunities brought about by the rise of national brands in China's consumer goods industry. On the one hand, the company's research found that the younger generation of consumers has more national pride, as the rise of the national trend brand is an example; on the other hand, Chinese companies are becoming more mature and more competitive.

He Xiaoqing also said that local companies have more advantages in social media marketing and market decision-making, but national brands need to pay more attention to product power if they want to achieve sustainable development. The key to the success of local brands in the consumer goods industry lies in the three aspects of marketing capabilities, product capabilities, and channel construction. Although each market segment has its own focus, none of them are indispensable.

He Xiaoqing believes that in recent years, multinational companies in the retail industry are gradually changing their positioning of China. Specifically, seven or eight years ago, the positioning was "Globle for China" (global products are sold to the Chinese market), and then it began to turn to "China For China" (Chinese customized products are sold to China), and now it is moving towards "China For Globle" (China's innovative products are sold globally) Upgrade.

The innovative development of Chinese companies has brought considerable pressure to multinational companies, but from another perspective, this will also become a driving force for their rapid transformation.