Taiwan & China Must Pay North American Solar Duties
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The ongoing trade war between US- and Canada-based solar manufacturers and Chinese competitors over the practices of solar panel dumping and unfair product subsidies continues as the Canada Border Services Agency seeks increased tariffs on imported solar products.
The preliminary ruling in Canada concludes that these modules have been dumped and subsidized and all such modules imported from March 5, 2015, will be subject to the significant collection of provisional duty rates on these imports, which is 281%.
Similar actions were imposed in the US on January 31 when the US Department of Commerce’s final ruling that PV cells from the Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan that have been dumped (benefiting from price subsidies) are now subject to duties of 91%.
In a press announcement, Canadian green manufacturer Carmanah Technologies Corporation (CTC) stated it anticipates the tariffs will affect “flexible solar panels which are only available in reliable form from Chinese suppliers.” The company reports flexible panel-based products represent only 2.5% of overall sales and, therefore, expects “no meaningful financial impact.”
According to CTC, the imposition of duties in Canada and the United States will have limited overall impact on Carmanah’s business once all supply chain adjustments are fully in place.
On December 16, 2014, the US Department of Commerce announced its final determinations in its anti-dumping duty investigations of imports of certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.
As a result, anti-dumping laws provide US businesses and workers with an internationally accepted mechanism for seeking relief from the market-distorting effects caused by dumping and unfair subsidization of imports.
Responding to petitioner SolarWorld Americas, the Department of Commerce determined that imports of certain crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from Taiwan have been sold in the United States at dumping margins, ranging from 11.45 % to 27.55 %, citing Jinko Solar/Jinko Solar Import and Export, as well as 43 other exporters qualified for a separate rate of 52.13%.
As a result of the US and Canadian tariffs, the overall effect on consumers remains to be determined.
Image: China shipping cargo ship via Shutterstock
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