US-China PV double-reverse blows face bigger Chinese companies collectively opposed

On May 21, China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Mechanical and Electrical Products, together with Yingli New Energy, Trina Solar and Artus, held a press conference on the Chinese PV industry against the second "double opposition" of the United States. This is the first joint venture of China's major photovoltaic industry associations to jointly voice and unanimously oppose the US "double opposition."

Sun Guangbin, deputy secretary-general of China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Mechanical and Electrical Products, issued a strong joint statement on behalf of China's photovoltaic industry, resolutely opposed the US "double-reverse" investigation and called on China and the United States to resolve trade disputes through consultations and negotiations.

CSIQ CEO Xiao Xiaoying told 21st Century Business Reporter that the company’s call for government to create a fair competitive environment for enterprises, in addition to considering sales, is more important to consider hundreds of thousands of families. Employment.

The second round of "double anti-" hits is bigger

Sun Guangbin said that since 2011, the United States has initiated the first "double-reverse" investigation of Chinese PV companies. Although China provides a large amount of factual evidence that China's PV companies do not have any so-called illegal subsidies and dumping, "the investigation authorities and the prosecutors ignore the reasonable defense of Chinese PV companies, regardless of the trade protection caused by the Sino-US PV industry cooperation. The negative impact and the tremendous damage caused to the downstream enterprises in the United States are determined to impose high anti-dumping and countervailing duties.

The second "double-reverse" investigation conducted in 2014 even ignored the current effective rules of origin in the United States and undermined international trade rules, which had a very bad impact.

The second "double-reverse" is bigger than the first "double-reverse". For the first time in the United States, the object of "double-reverse" to the Chinese PV industry is the use of battery modules produced in China's solar cell. The result of the arbitration is to impose a tariff of 24% - 36% on components exported from China. Affected by this, many mainland companies use battery chips produced in Taiwan to produce components.

Immediately after the second "double opposition" of the US side, it was mainly aimed at components assembled in mainland China from Taiwan and other market economy third-country batteries, which made the only retreat of Chinese enterprises blocked.

Sun Guangbin believes that according to the conclusion of the US Department of Commerce in the previous round of "double-reverse" investigation, "the origin of the battery determines the origin of the component." According to the same logic, the mainland component surveyed does not belong to China. In the country of origin of the mainland, the US Department of Commerce should not investigate mainland China products.

Yang Xiaozhong, vice president of Trina Solar, said: "In the process of communicating with the American industry associations, it is understood that local companies in the United States do not support the settlement of trade disputes through taxation. This damages the development of the US industry itself."

Data show that since 2011, the United States and the European Union have launched anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations on Chinese PV products, which has negatively affected China's PV companies, but also dragged down the development of the domestic PV application market, resulting in a large loss of employment. According to the report of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association, due to the EU's “double-reverse” measures, the EU's annual installed capacity in 2013 was down 16% from the forecast at the beginning of the year.

This time, the US Department of Commerce will announce the results of the anti-subsidy preliminary ruling on June 2, the anti-dumping preliminary ruling on July 28, and the anti-dumping and counter-subsidy final ruling on December 11. On January 26, 2015, the US International Trade Commission will finally decide whether to levy taxes.

PV market globalization trend

Sun Guangbin told the 21st Century Business Herald that the component sales of Chinese PV companies last year accounted for 40% of the Asian market, Europe accounted for 20%, and the US market share has dropped to 15-18%. “This shows that the PV market has become more and more diversified, and Chinese companies are no longer dependent on the US and European markets as before, and emerging markets are emerging.”

Take Artes as an example. According to its quarterly report, Artes global market share of the company's total sales is 6% in Europe, 43.6% in the Americas, and 50.4% in Asia and other regions.

Artes CEO Xiao Xiaoying emphasized that the installed capacity of the US PV market in 2014 is expected to be 5-6GW, with 50% of China's export components and 3GW of exports. 3GW components can be converted into sales of 2 billion to 3 billion US dollars for enterprises, but the most critical is not only in this sales, but behind the employment of hundreds of thousands of PV industry, the most influential is migrant workers. Therefore, Xiao Xiaoyu called on the government to create a fair competitive environment for enterprises and to maintain the employment of hundreds of thousands of families.

Yang Xiaozhong, vice president of Trina Solar, also said that there is more and more mutual penetration between China and the US market. "American companies on the one hand prevent Chinese companies from exporting products to the United States, and on the other hand they want to enter the Chinese market. For example, China's installed market is considered by American companies to be the most important market," he said.

And this trend is spreading. For example, Heraeus, a German-based silver paste company, announced that it will achieve localization of positive silver paste this year. It may be located in Shanghai and turn China into a second Asian base outside Singapore. In the interview with the 21st Century Business Herald, the US PV equipment manufacturer GT executives also said that their equipment will adopt a global subcontracting procurement model, and the proportion of procurement from China will increase in the future.