India, the largest importer of Chinese solar equipment, has proposed a 70 percent safeguard duty on cells and modules shipped from China and Malaysia, citing “threat of serious injury” to the domestic industry.
Acting on an application by five local cell and module makers, the Indian Directorate-General of Safeguards made the proposal in a document dated on Friday last week.
It recommended the levy remain in effect for 200 days.
“Existing critical circumstances justify the immediate imposition of a provisional safeguard duty in order to save the domestic industry from further serious injury, which would be difficult to repair,” the Indian Ministry of Finance said in the document, also citing the potential for job losses.
India’s annual manufacturing capacity for solar cells is only about 3 gigawatts, compared with the average requirement of 20 gigawatts, a government note said last month, adding that the rest has to be purchased on the international market.
The South Asian nation was the largest solar cell and module importer from China last year, buying one-third of China’s US$8 billion of shipments from January through September, research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance showed.
The ministry’s document said China’s solar exports to India constituted 1.52 percent of its total global exports in 2012, a figure that surged to almost 22 percent in 2016.
“India’s solar story is built on Chinese panels and the duty, if implemented, would mean the end of record low solar tariffs that we saw in 2017,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance New Delhi-based analyst Vandana Gombar said.
The government’s proposal came after five domestic manufacturers — Adani Enterprises Ltd-backed Mundra Solar PV Ltd, Indosolar Ltd, Jupiter Solar Power Ltd, Websol Energy Systems Ltd and Helios Photo Voltaic Ltd — filed an application on Friday seeking a duty on imports of solar cells “whether or not assembled in modules or panels.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last