The U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) announced the anti-dumping and countervailing final determination on December 17th. Chinese PV manufacturers were imposed anti-subsidy tax rates ranged between 26.89%-38.72%. Among all, Trina’s anti-subsidy tax rate increased from 18.56% to 49.79%, while Suntech’s declined slightly.
The average anti-dumping tax rate was 52.13% for Chinese manufacturers, in which, Trina’s anti-dumping tax rate increased nearly 1%, while Jinko’s and Renesola’s increased from 58.87% to 78.42%. The rates for forty-three companies, including Yingli and Canadian Solar, rose from 42.33% to 52.13% and the rate for those that were not in the list even reached 165%. The following is a summary of the responses from the major Chinese producers:
Yingli was imposed an anti-dumping duty rate of 52.13% and an anti-subsidy duty rate of 38.72%. Robert Petrina, managing director of Yingli Americas, indicated that he is disappointed at the result. “We will continue our vigorous defense on the behalf of our customers, partners, and other stakeholders with the hope that national efforts to increase solar power's cost-competiveness are not derailed further,” he said. "Despite the constraints posed by these ongoing legal proceedings, we remain deeply committed to the U.S. market and our customers. We are determined to prevail, thereby enabling American businesses, homeowners, and utilities to benefit from highly competitive solar solutions," said Liansheng Miao, chairman and chief executive officer of Yingli.
Canadian Solar is also disappointed by the DOC’s decision. It is planning to utilize its 500MW production site in Ontario, Canada to continue its support for solar energy development in the U.S. “As a Canadian company, however, we firmly believe in free international trade and a market economy with zero trade barreiers,” said Thomas Koerner, general manager of Canadian Solar Americas Division.
Jinko thinks that although the US-China trade war will have certain negative impacts, the U.S. and Europe will somehow need imports to fulfill their market demands because production cost and technology are the keys to large-scale productions. Since China is the largest PV manufacturing base, with the most complete PV supply chain, it will become the largest application market in the world.
As for other Chinese companies, moving manufacturing facilities and expanding to the emerging markets seems to be the choices for tariff avoidance. Wanxiang Solar’s sales business in the U.S. represents about 50%-60% of its global sales business. Hence, 70% of its products supply to the U.S. market. The person in charge of Wanxiang Solar pointed out that Wanxiang’s only overseas production site in Chicago has become one of its solutions for the US-China trade war.