Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China announced their final judgment for the “Anti-Dumping and Countervailing” policy toward South Korean and American polysilicon manufacturers. The anti-subsidy tariff imposed on solar polysilicon imported from USA is 0% ~ 2.1% and the anti-dumping tariff is 53.3% ~ 57%. As for solar polysilicon imported from Korea, the anti-dumping duty imposed is 2.4% ~ 48.7% and Korea is not included within anti-subsidy penalty. Duties will be charged starting from January, 2014 and will last for the next five years.
On January 19th, the United States International Trade Commission (USITC) called a public hearing to discuss furthering the Anti-Dumping and Countervailing policy against China’s PV industry. Meanwhile, Taiwanese PV manufacturers also participated in the hearing to plead against the policy and may provide a written testimony on January 26th.
As Chinese PV cell producers have been charged with taxes by USA following the implementation of the Anti-Dumping and Countervailing policy in recent years, they turned to purchase PV cells from Taiwanese manufacturers and built the compounds into modules for exporting to USA. In order to act against this oversight, US solar companies including SolarWorld appealed extending the policy over PV cell manufacturers in “third-party countries” like Taiwan to USITC and US Department of Commerce.
After finishing the public hearing, an insider expressed that there may be an initial judgment in mid-February from USITC and in June or July from DOC. If the dumping action is declared, there would be a preliminary taxation. The result from DOC, along with the final taxation amount, may be determined in August or September once the dumping action is reaffirmed. As early as October this year, ITC may have the final conclusion and taxation rate, although it is still possible that the case will not be completely settled until February of next year.
TrendForce believes that the final judgment on the tax rate will be similar to the one from early March, and hence may cause some influence on Taiwanese producers’ OEM orders from mainland China between 1Q14 and 2Q14. Taiwanese companies are likely to be exposed to harm no matter what the conclusion will be because the Chinese manufacturers would rather reduce their shipment to USA or produce PV cells and modules by themselves. With such a foresight, it’s necessary and urgent for Taiwanese manufacturers to find more oversea markets.
