Greentech Lead India: Anti-dumping case against foreign manufacturers is likely to be extended to imports from more countries including Europe and Japan.
Indian solar companies, which have filed the case against the U.S and China solar imports, have now filed a similar petition against companies from the E.U and Japan, Bloomberg reported. The petitioners include Indosolar, Jupiter Solar Power and Websol Energy System.
Indian firms are concerned because foreign suppliers offer solar cells at much lower a rate than that offered by indigenous manufacturers.
Anti-dumping dispute bottlenecks solar projects in India
It is to be noted that only three solar manufacturers have signed the petition out of more than 400 such companies in India. This is likely to weaken their argument, according to experts. As per the World Trade Organization mandate, petitioners must have at least a 25 percent share of the market to open a case. As it is difficult to determine the current solar market size in India with the available figures, it’s still not clear whether the three petitioners meet these criteria.
The first hearing on the petition against solar imports from the U.S, China, Taiwan and Malaysia was held last week. The petitioners allege that solar imports are affecting indigenous manufacturers adversely. The damage inflicted on the industry is as much as twice the cost of imports from January 2011 to June 2012, according to the report.
The next hearing on August 2 will decide whether the new tariffs have to be imposed or not. The anti-dumping bottleneck has already affected several projects that involve foreign manufacturers.
Power companies and solar project developers are in favor of solar imports as they get solar panels at a competitive rate. They also argue Indian solar manufacturers do not meet quality and capacity needs.
The tariff war between Indian manufacturers and foreign suppliers is the latest to grip the solar industry that is facing tough challenges due to oversupply. Last year the U.S imposed huge tariffs on Chinese imports saying the subsidized Chinese products are affecting the solar industry in the U.S. In June the E.U set preliminary duties of 11.8 percent on Chinese modules. This is likely to increase to 67.9 percent if a deal isn’t reached.
As an immediate response to this, China recently set preliminary tariffs of as much as 57 percent on polysilicon shipped from the U.S. and South Korea this week.