LI plastics firm says China currency games hurt business

Another Long Island company is publicly complaining about what it says are unfair Chinese business practices that have cost it jobs and millions of dollars in sales.

Earlier this week Westbury-based manufacturer Autronic Plastics said it has lost to the China in the last seven years about 80 percent of the portion of its business that makes emergency exit signs -- the result, it charges, of currency manipulation by the Chinese.

The loss of that business, Autronic said, has forced it to lay off 15 people -- seven on Long Island, the rest at its factory in North Carolina -- and meant millions of dollars in lost sales. The 59-year-old company now has 75 employees.

Autronic is the latest Long Island business to complain publicly about Chinese practices. Farmingdale-based D'Addario & Co., a manufacturer of guitar strings, has been in the forefront of a fight against counterfeiting of products by Chinese companies.

On Sunday, Autronic Plastics vice president Daniel Lax stood next to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) at a Manhattan news conference as the lawmaker announced that a bipartisan group of senators will introduce a bill this week to help American manufacturers who have lost business to Chinese competitors.

Schumer and others have charged the Chinese with manipulating its currency, the yuan, to keep prices of its goods artificially low. The Chinese have denied the charges.

In the case of Autronic Plastics, Lax, 31, said Chinese-made exit signs are about 40 percent cheaper than those made his company. He declined to provide a dollar figure.

"Any opportunity to level the playing field would be welcome," Lax said of the bill. It would require the Treasury Department to publicly identify countries that are manipulating their currency and require unspecified "action" by the government if they fail to halt the manipulation.

Autronic also makes plastic components for the aerospace, medical and life-safety industries. Only the sign business is impacted by Chinese issues.

Wang Baodong, a spokesman at the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said in an email that Chinese officials "do not believe the [Schumer] legislation is the appropriate mechanism by which to address the currency issue . . . China has never manipulated its currency."

"If this legislation in question becomes law, it will have serious economic consequences, not only for the economic relationship between China and the U.S., but also on the growth and recovery of the world economy," Baodong wrote.

Jim D'Addario, D'Addario's chief executive, said counterfeiting has cost his company between 5 percent and 15 percent of its about $130 million in annual sales. "Sanctions must be taken" against the Chinese, D'Addario said.