Last month, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) confirmed the damage caused by Chinese PV products dumped to the U.S. ITC therefore started investigating on related factors and announced that Taiwanese PV manufacturers will be the respondents of Taiwan. Accordingly, Taiwanese makers will be able to defend their own interests and rights against the dumping tariffs.
Yingli and Hanwha SolarOne, two of large Chinese PV manufacturers, said during the Chinese New Year that they hoped to be Taiwanese manufacturers’ respondents against the investigation, and this worried Taiwanese makers that their interests and rights might be harmed. Yet, ITC announced that the institute will select respondents from Taiwanese manufacturers and thus released the stress last Friday.
Neo Solar Power Corp. (NSP) and Motech were two of the Taiwanese exporters that sold most PV products to USA last year, and they may both become the respondents who will go defend for Taiwanese manufacturers.
“Filing doesn’t mean establishing,” said Dr. Quincy Lin, the Chairman of NSP in an udn.com’s report. “Taiwan’s SRAM and DRAM products were once accused to be dumped by USA, and those makers were all free from penalty tariffs. We will do our best to reverse the accusation.”
Most orders and prices of Taiwan’s PV cell in March aren’t affected by U.S.’s anti-dumping investigation. Additionally, price trend is optimistic to products which are not the items to be investigated such as PV wafers made by Green Energy Technology. Gigastorage, on the other hand, indicated that the higher tariff imposed to Taiwanese PV cells may also cause further loss to U.S.’s PV industry. The actual effects won’t be obvious until the final verdict on duties is announced.
ITC will officially select the respondents on February 28th and Motech and NSP may be named as Taiwan manufacturers’ representatives. It’s believed that Taiwanese manufacturers is possible to turn over the petition and avoid being imposed penalty tariffs as long as they can convince ITC and the U.S. Department of Commerce that there was no PV products dumping from Taiwan to USA.