On July 24, 2012, the German SolarWorld AG filed its complaint to European Commission (EC), asking for an anti-dumping investigation against China’s photovoltaic products. The Commission, the EU's executive arm, will have 45 days from the date of the case's filing to decvide if it will start an investigation. Given this, as a national organization in new energy private sector, China New Energy Chamber of Commerce (hereafter referring to CNECC) issued the following statement.
1. This antidumping investigation complaint will be the biggest trade relief case between China and EU which worth careful treatment from both sides
In 2011, China’s total capacity of solar products was 32GW. Since the scope of this investigation complaint covers all solar products, the total amount is nearly a trillion RMB. Besides, there are 280,000-300,000 employees at European PV companies and about 1 million job opportunities in China’s PV industry; In addition, the value of export of China’s PV products is nearly 10 billion USD, which closes to China’s total amount of vehicles imports from EU in 2011. Therefore, once the case is accepted by EC Chinese PV makers will be punished by dumping duty and be imposed on high tariff, the cooperation of trade, politics, economy and social development between two units will undoubtedly suffer from huge blow.
2. China’s PV products has not done harm to EU’s relevant industries and there is not any dumping behaviour by China
Firstly, we strongly oppose a few EU companies’ complaint that China’s PV products exported to Europe have caused the lost in European PV industry. The are two main reasons for their decline of the market share in EU. On one hand, under the background of European debt crisis, the EU market is not positive and the total demand for PV products is declined. It is inevitable that a few European PV companies shrink their markets.On the other hand, some internal factors such as high cost, lag of technology innovation, slow market development and inefficient enterprise management of some European companies made them less competitive.
Secondly, we also strongly oppose that a few European companies’ accusing China’s dumping PV products. The majority of China’s PV producers are from private sector (not state-owned companies) who cannot afford dumping at a loss.As it known to all, PV industry is emerging in China and the imported producing equipments and technology processing are most advanced and effective in the world. Based on this, China’s companies did further innovation and lead the world in the transfer efficiency of solar cells. Mixture of large-scale producing, high density in mating industry chain, low cost of labour force and decreasing prices of raw materials in major international markets makes China’s PV products competitive of high quality and low price. What we achievedis owe to Chinese workers’ wisdom and diligence in PV industry.
To sum up, the antidumping compliant by a few European companies against China’ PV products is the behavior in essence of transferring market attention and business crisis to Chinese companies, due to European companies’ own management and production backward problems without solutions. We firmly opposes such incomprehensible accuse raised by those European companies.
3. China’s PV companies in private sector will rally against EU’s antidumping investigation to be filed
As a national organization in China’s new energy private sector, CNECC has over 500 membership companies, including PV private companies and a few international ones. Hereby, on behalf of China’s PV industry, we appeal European Commission’s prudent treatment on this complaint, strictly complying with WTO’s regulations, making decision in an objective, fair and just position. If Europe side approved this incomprehensible complaint, China’s PV companies in private sector will rally to take countermeasures.
4. We sincerely and formally invite EC relevant institutions coming to China and friendly negotiation between bilateral sides is respected
CNECC would like to take this opportunity to invite EC relevant institutions and Solarworld etc. coming to China for discussion. We are willing to be the coordinator for the meeting in purpose of setting up dialogue mechanism. History told us that the trade war would not be workable, only discussion and cooperation will lead to a win-win situation. We strongly believe that hand-in-hand cooperation will push the development of the world solar PV industry forward.
5. China’s government is expected to attach great importance on this issue, and take prompt countermeasures effectively
As one of strategic industries in “12th Five-year Plan” by Chinese government, PV industry is still at its initial stage. Chinese government should alert to treat of EU’s coming antidumping investigation, taking prompt measures effectively to prevent EU’s filing of this investigation complaint. Meanwhile, relevant countermeasures should be also considered in case of the accident.
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