China, the world’s biggest maker of solar panels, is preparing to set anti-dumping duties on imports of the raw material used to make the equipment after determining it was sold below cost, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce has completed probes that determined the US and EU are subsidizing producers of polysilicon and that imports of the commodity harmed domestic companies, said the people, who asked not to be identified as they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The ministry is holding off on setting duties until the EU issues its ruling on anti-dumping tariffs against Chinese-made solar equipment, which will be a factor in China’s decision, the people said.
The EU plans to levy tariffs of as much as 67.9 percent on solar panels from China, with the measures to be announced by June 6, a commerce official from the bloc, who asked not to be identified, said this month. The US began a probe against Chinese manufacturers in 2011 and the EU in September last year after falling solar equipment prices led to the collapse of companies including Fremont, California-based Solyndra LLC.
China’s import tax could be high as “the EU situation that we face is not positive,” Lian Rui, a Beijing-based analyst at research company NPD Solarbuzz, said by telephone yesterday.
Chinese producers of polysilicon, including GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd (保利協鑫能源). and Daqo New Energy Corp, (大全新能源) will benefit, he said.
Shares of GCL-Poly jumped as much as 3.2 percent to HK$1.93, the highest intraday price since March 13, and traded at HK$1.91 in Hong Kong as of 11:53am local time. Daqo rose 16 percent to close at US$6.44 in New York on Wednesday.
China responded by starting probes against the US in July last year and the EU in November to determine if producers of polysilicon from those regions, such as Hemlock Semiconductor Corp of the US and Germany’s Wacker Chemie AG, were dumping the material.
“If there are no loopholes, Chinese duties would boost polysilicon prices to about US$20 a kilogram,” Lian said.
The average spot price of the commodity fell to US$17.26 a kilogram as of May 6, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
China imported 83,000 metric tonnes of polysilicon last year, 32 percent more than domestic production output, Liu Jing, an analyst from the China Nonferrous Metals Industrial Association, a trade group that advises the government, said in a report on April 28.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is