Two more Chinese solar-panel exporters stand to lose exemptions from EU tariffs, marking the latest blow to a minimum-price agreement between the EU and China.
Chint Solar Zhejiang Co (浙江正泰太陽能) and Sunny Energy Science and Technology Co (桑尼能源) breached the terms of the price-floor pact that underpins the exemptions from the EU import duties, according to a European Commission document obtained by Bloomberg News yesterday.
The Brussels-based commission, the 28-nation EU’s executive arm, also concluded in the text dated Thursday last week that the price accord, known as an undertaking, is too difficult to monitor in the case of the two companies.
“The findings of breaches of the undertaking and its impracticability established for Chint Solar and Sunny Energy justify the withdrawal of the acceptance of the undertaking for these two exporting producers,” said the document, which was drawn up by the commission’s trade department.
The plan, disclosed to interested parties, would take effect after publication in the EU’s Official Journal.
Publication of such a proposal would normally come within weeks of its disclosure. The commission’s trade spokesman, Daniel Rosario, could not be reached yesterday to comment on the matter.
Weaknesses have emerged in a late 2013 EU-China agreement to curb European imports of Chinese solar panels after the commission concluded that they unfairly undercut producers in Europe such as Solarworld AG.
The accord set a minimum price and a volume limit on European imports from China of the renewable-energy technology until the end of this year. Chinese manufacturers that opted to take part in the pact are spared EU tariffs meant to counter alleged below-cost sales, a practice known as dumping, and subsidies.
Last month, the commission withdrew the duty exemptions for Znshine PV-Tech Co Ltd (正信光伏科技). In June, it did the same for three Chinese producer groups, including Canadian Solar Inc (阿特斯陽光電力) subsidiaries.
As with Znshine and Canadian Solar, Chint Solar and Sunny Energy were exempted from a 41.3 percent anti-dumping duty and a 6.4 percent anti-subsidy levy when the EU imposed the trade protection against China in December 2013.
Chint Solar and Sunny Energy are to face those two sets of duties should the commission go ahead with its planned decision.
Separately, Canadian Solar on Thursday said its Recurrent Energy unit received a US$337 million loan to build a project in California.
Recurrent is to use the funds from six banks to complete construction of its 200-megawatt Tranquility Solar Power project in Fresno County in the fourth quarter of next year, Canadian Solar said in a statement. Terms were not disclosed.
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