The US Department of Commerce is to announce a preliminary ruling next week on Chinese government subsidies to solar producers, the US unit of SolarWorld AG said in a statement.
On Tuesday, the Commerce Department is set to make public its first determination on whether solar products imported from China and Taiwan harmed US producers in relation to several subsidy allegations submitted by SolarWorld Industries America Inc in a complaint filed on Dec. 31 last year.
The latest case follows an investigation into China’s solar subsidies in 2012, which resulted in punitive duties of 14 to 15 percent on all Chinese producers, causing many of them to avoid the duties by buying solar cells manufactured in Taiwan or other countries.
“The new cases would address Chinese evasion of the initial trade case by applying the duties to Chinese solar panels made with Chinese wafers or other inputs, even if the cells are made in a third country,” SolarWorld Industries said in the statement issued on Wednesday.
In addition, the department is scheduled to issue a preliminary ruling on anti-dumping duties against Chinese and Taiwanese producers on July 25, Hillsboro, Oregon-based SolarWorld Industries said.
The company has complained that Chinese solar producers — such as Canadian Solar Inc (阿特斯陽光電力), Suntech Power Holdings Co (尚德電力), Trina Solar Ltd (天合光能) and Yingli Green Energy Holding (英利綠色能源) — have received government assistance to make their extrusions of polysilicon to solar glass and to aluminum more competitive overseas.
The assistance from the Chinese government reportedly includes cash grants, discounted loans and loan guarantees, as well as free land and utilities, the largest manufacturer of solar panels in the US said.
The company said next week’s ruling has great importance for the US solar industry, adding that many founding members of the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) industry trade group are either struggling or out of business because of unfair competition from Chinese producers.
Last week, major Chinese solar panel makers issued a joint statement opposing the US government’s anti-dumping investigation and denying the subsidy allegations.
Trade tensions are increasing between the US and China.
On May 19, the US Department of Justice charged five members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army with cyberespionage targeting SolarWorld, five other US companies and a labor union.
“We look forward to the Commerce Department’s ruling, which could be a very important step toward returning fair competition to the solar market,” SolarWorld Industries president Mukesh Dulani said in the statement. “China’s pervasive subsidies distort the marketplace and have harmed the US solar manufacturing industry for years. Enough is enough.”
Separately, TSMC Solar Ltd (台積太陽能), a subsidiary of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), yesterday said it had recruited a veteran of the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory to boost its research and development program for copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cells.
Rommel Noufi, a principal scientist at the laboratory for 33 years who focused on CIGS and cadmium telluride cell research, is expected to help improve the company’s module efficiency over the next several years, TSMC Solar said in a statement.
The Greater Taichung-based company is expanding its capacity from the current 40 megawatts to 120 megawatts by the fourth quarter of this year, it said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
RSS