Australia drops solar anti-dumping case against Chinese firms

PV Magazine

The Anti-Dumping Commission of the Australian Government has this week officially terminated its investigation into the alleged dumping of crystalline silicon PV modules and panels exported from China, finalizing a recommendation made in April to terminate the case.

Launched more than a year ago following an allegation made by Tindo Manufacturing Pty Ltd that claimed dumped solar panels from China were causing material injury to the Australian PV manufacturing industry, the investigation found as early as April that the relatively small dumping margins it was able to identify had caused negligible injury or hindrance to the sector.

The termination of the investigation, cited by many in the industry as expensive and unnecessary, has been welcomed by Australia’s Clean Energy Council (CEC), which worked with the Commission during the investigation to deliver a number of submissions from its members.

“We are very pleased that the investigation has been terminated, removing a significant source of uncertainty that has been hanging over the industry for nearly 18 months,” said Darren Gladman, CEC policy manager.

“Trade liberalization is an important issue that has major benefits for local consumers. Dumping duties would make solar power more expensive for Australians, negatively affect sales and inhibit the growth of the Australian industry.”

Tindo Solar, which brought the allegation, is the only module manufacturer operating in Australia. It has a 60 MW capacity fab in South Australia. During the course of the investigation, the Commission found that Wuxi Suntech had the largest dumping margin at 8.7%, followed by Trina Solar (4%), Residual Exporters (3.9%), ET Solar (3%) and ReneSola (2.1%) – levels that were ultimately deemed to be negligible in terms of actual material harm.

Australia’s termination of the anti-dumping investigation comes just a day after Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) called for an end to the European Union’s Minimum Import Price (MIP), anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties levied on PV products arriving from China.