China Solar Products: Commerce to Require CV Duty Cash Deposits
The Commerce Department will require cash deposits of estimated countervailing duties on imports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic products from China, it said June 3 in a fact sheet announcing its preliminary determination. The agency set CV duty cash deposit rates at 18.56%-35.21% for Chinese exporters. Domestic solar companies requested the duties to close a "loophole" in the 2012 AD/CVD orders on solar cells that’s allegedly letting in an increasing amount of Chinese solar modules made from Taiwanese solar cells (see 14010301).
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Commerce is currently making no changes to the range of products covered by the duties, despite some controversy over the fact that it only covers solar cells that aren’t made in China. According to an agency memo, CV duties will cover “modules, laminates and/or panels assembled in the subject country consisting of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells that are completed or partially manufactured within a customs territory other than that subject country, using ingots that are manufactured in the subject country, wafers that are manufactured in the subject country, or cells where the manufacturing process begins in the subject country and is completed in a non-subject country.” Products subject to AD/CV duty orders on solar cells from China are exempt.
In the same memo, Commerce said it received comments from “numerous parties” on the scope of duties, as well as the scope of the concurrent antidumping duty investigations on China and Taiwan. Commerce “is continuing to analyze the scope comments received in these investigations,” it said. Commerce also said it “plans to implement a certification requirement.”
The Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE), which opposes the duties, criticized the scope in a statement released shortly after Commerce announced the new duties (here). “By accepting SolarWorld’s request to expand the scope of the solar dispute, although they are continuing to entertain scope comments, the Department of Commerce is disregarding decades of legal precedent that define scope by applying the ‘country of origin’ and ‘substantial transformation’ trade rules,” it said. The use of SolarWorld’s proposed scope is also fundamentally inconsistent with the Department’s own previous ‘scope’ determination in the 2012 solar cell dispute,” said CASE.
But SolarWorld, which originally requested the investigations, said the scope is necessary to close a loophole in AD/CV duties imposed in 2012. “In late 2012, the U.S. crystalline silicon solar manufacturing industry won duties averaging 31 percent to offset illegal government subsidies that enabled Chinese producers to sell at artificially low prices to seize market share from domestic manufacturers operating within the U.S. market,” it said on June 3 (here). “But many Chinese producers evaded the duties by commissioning manufacturers in other countries to partially or fully produce solar photovoltaic cells for assembly into solar panels back in China,” said SolarWorld. “State-controlled Chinese media said at least 70 percent of U.S. imports from China contain Taiwanese cells. In that light, SolarWorld filed cases Dec. 31 to close the loophole.”
Commerce's final determination is currently due in August. Its preliminary antidumping duty determinations on solar products from China and Taiwan are due in July (see 14052318). CV duty cash deposit requirements will take effect in the coming days upon publication of the preliminary determination. ITT will have details when they are published in the Federal Register.
Email ITTNews@warren-news.com for a copy of the Commerce memo.