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Yingli Green Energy, also Yingli Solar, has officially announced to withdraw from EU’s Price Undertaking (UT) agreement, or the Minimum Import Price (MIP) agreement. Yingli Solar therefore became the 24th Chinese PV company that exit from the Undertaking.
"Since accepting the UT agreement in 2013, we have been committed to fair trade and robust market competition by participating in the price undertaking,” commented Mr. Liansheng Miao, Chairman and CEO of Yingli Green Energy. “However, after carefully reviewing our EU operations and the current market situation, we have decided to withdraw from the UT agreement.”
He added, “We remain committed to our European customers and intend to continue to serve them with high-quality, reliable products through means that are feasible and available to us after the withdrawal from the UT agreement.”
Yingli Solar was the very last tier-one Chinese PV company that accepted the UT agreement. After the withdrawal, Yingli Solar will be imposed 35.5% anti-dumping tariff and 6.3% anti-subsidy tariff when exporting PV products to Europe.
Given that the average selling prices of PV modules in all major EU markets have continued to decline commensurate with the significantly shrinking market for PV products in recent years, Yingli Solar believes that the current MIP no longer accurately reflects the current market price environment. Yingli Solar believes that its continued acceptance of and participation in the UT agreement would harm fair competition in the market, stated in the company’s announcement.
EU’s anti-dumping and anti-subsidy tariffs, as well as the MIP agreement, should end by March 2017. However, the EU Commission has decided to extend existing measures for two years, until March 2019. The EU Commission has also revised the price for 2017 MIP agreement to €0.46/W for modules and€0.23/W for cells.
(Photo: Yingli Solar's booth at SNEC 2017 in Shanghai, China.)