Recently, according to Bloomberg News and Reuters, India is considering imposing a 7.5% tariff on imported PV cells and components. Currently, imported PV products fall into the category of 'diodes, transistors and other semiconductors' enjoying zero tax rates and may be included in the future' Motor and Generator 'category tax.
As a result of the tariff dispute, some 2,000 containers with solar PV modules were stranded at several port customs in India for a total value of 150 million U.S. dollars, most of which were from China.
Meanwhile, on January 5, the General Administration of Safeguards of India has made a preliminary ruling on the anti-dumping investigation, recommending that the Ministry of Finance impose a 70% temporary safeguard tariff on imported solar photovoltaic cells and components for a period of 200 days.
India loves to hate China PV products
Peng Peng, director of policy research at the Renewable Energy Specialized Committee of China's Circular Economy Association, commented: 'India is the largest export market for PV in China, and the taxation has a great impact on the export of photovoltaic enterprises in China. However, due to the weak Indian PV industry, It will not help India's manufacturing industry develop, on the contrary it will damage its own PV development enterprises, and more than one-sixth of India's population will be left without electricity. "
India is one of the most promising solar PV markets in the world today, with India surpassing Japan in 2017 to become the world's third largest photovoltaic market after China and the United States.
India's sunshine conditions are excellent, but it is also a serious shortage of power in the country. Outdated power facilities can not meet the daily electricity supply of huge population and the rapid development of industrial electricity consumption. The gap in peak power consumption has reached as high as 13.1%.
In these contexts, India proposed a program of developing clean energy to ease energy shortages. The latest development goal is five times that of the previous government plan and 100 GW of installed capacity will be achieved by 2022.
Equivalent to each year, the demand for PV modules in India has increased by about 10GW, and the productivity of PV modules in India is far from satisfying.
According to the report of BridgeTo India, a business consulting firm in India, solar cell and module manufacturing capacity in India has been only 1.7GW and 5.5GW respectively for the 2016-2017 fiscal year. The actual output is only 0.7GW and 1.7GW.
India's booming solar energy is highly dependent on imported components, with about 89% coming from abroad.China's PV modules and batteries account for more than 60% of the global supply and are also the largest supplier to the Indian market, accounting for 85% of India's imports of PV modules.
From January to September 2017, one-third of China's $ 8 billion PV modules exported to India were exported to India, while the import of low-cost components saved developers the cost of building power stations. As a result, the Indian solar price also dropped all the way to May last year The lowest reached 2.44 rupees / degrees, cheaper than the coal price over the same period.
The influx of low-cost Chinese products has been a concern in India, the photovoltaic industry is only one of them.According to the statistics of China's General Administration of Customs show that from January to November 2017, China's exports to India 61.833 billion US dollars, imports of only 146.92 Hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars, India's deficit with China up to 47.141 billion U.S. dollars.
Local PV manufacturers in India, relying on imported raw materials, are more expensive. Components in India are usually 10% to 20% more expensive than the same products in China and generally low in technology. They are not competitive in the face of a large number of affordable products from Chinese enterprises , Accounting for only 10.6% market share.
India's government is taking a series of measures to support its own PV manufacturing industry.And the Indian government plans to allocate 1.7 billion U.S. dollars to directly subsidize the domestic solar module manufacturing industry and make new Of the rules, requiring photovoltaic companies must have a local factory to participate in project bidding.
India had twice conducted an anti-dumping investigation on imported solar cells and modules in 2012 and 2014. In July 2017, the Anti-Monopoly Administration of India's Ministry of Industry and Anti-monopoly filed a complaint against the Indian Solar Manufacturers' Association and announced that it had filed an anti-dumping investigation against mainland China, Taiwan Anti-dumping investigations on photovoltaic cells and components imported from the region and Malaysia.
The investigation was formally filed on December 19 last year and the current preliminary ruling proposes a temporary protection tariff of 70% for a period of 200 days.Peng Peng also believes that increasing the clean electricity supply at a lower price is the top priority for the Indian government, The taxation of PV modules will not help the Indian government to solve these real domestic problems, which will be a double-lose situation if the tax decision is finally taken.
PV companies set up factories in India to meet the challenge?
In the past few years, the rapid growth of production capacity of China's photovoltaic companies, businesses will soon be looking overseas markets.Microsoft Ministry of Electronic Information released "2016 China's photovoltaic industry operation" shows that China's photovoltaic industry in silicon, components, etc. The scale of production in all aspects of the industrial chain in the world accounted for more than 50%, continue to rank first in the world.
However, since 2012, the EU and the United States have repeatedly conducted anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on PV products in China, which have seriously weakened the competitive advantages of Chinese products in these markets by raising tax rates and limiting prices. In addition, EU member states gradually Cancellation of photovoltaic application incentives, also led to the EU market decline.
India's ambitious goals have led to a sharp rise in demand for solar PV equipment in India, while the domestic production of PV equipment in India is seriously under-produced. Sharp Chinese companies are turning to the Indian market as soon as possible.
According to a report released by the General Administration of Safeguards of India, China's PV exports to India accounted for only 1.52% of China's total PV exports in 2012 and soared to 21.58% by 2016. India rapidly jumped to become China's largest PV export market.
According to the recently released "India Solar Map 2017 Q3" by Bridge To India, 7 of the top 10 component suppliers in the Indian market for the third quarter of 2017 are from China, namely Trina Solar, JA Macau, Oriental Sunrise, GCL integration, Crystal Division, Zhongli Teng Hui and Hairun.
The Indian General Administration of Safeguard's proposed 70% anti-dumping duties will undoubtedly squeeze the profits of China's photovoltaic companies, seriously weakened product competitiveness.
As early as 2015, with the initiative of "One Belt and One Road", China encouraged enterprises to set up overseas factories and photovoltaic enterprises one after another to go abroad to set up overseas production bases, from 'global sales' to 'global manufacturing' ',' Global investment 'transformation.
According to the People's Daily Overseas Edition, in 2016, the overseas factories of Chinese PV companies have spread to more than 20 countries. The overseas completed production capacity has exceeded 5GW and the factory in India has also been recently concentrated.
GCL-Poly cooperates with Adani Group, one of India's largest resource, energy and logistics diversified businesses, to build a PV manufacturing industry with a full industrial chain of polysilicon, crystal growth, slicing, batteries and components within the Mundra Special Economic Zone in India Park and green energy and ecological demonstration park.
Trina Solar and WelspunRenewables companies to establish a 1GW battery and 1GW module manufacturing base in India.Harun PV's subsidiary Hareon Solar Singapore and Keshav Power Limited joint venture in India to build a production capacity of 1GW solar cell production base.
JA Solar, in partnership with EsselInfraproject, is building a 500MW joint venture solar cell and module manufacturing facility in India and signed a memorandum of understanding with Sun Group to collaborate on solar projects and to establish a joint venture in India Factory possibility.
JinkoSolar invested and built overseas factories in South Africa, Portugal and Malaysia, and now Jinko has built eight bases around the world, but it is noticed that the number of global PV modules shipped No. 1 in Jinko not yet Set up factories in India.
Zhongli Tenghui's performance in the Indian market is acceptable, but so far there is no Indian factory, which owns a 500MW integrated solar cell and assembly plant in Thailand's Thailand Rayong Industrial Park.
Chint, which is made by PV customers in the domestic market, is also only set up in Thailand. Chint purchased the Frankfurt (Oden) component plant under Conergy, a well-known German photovoltaic company with an annual capacity of 300MW and serves mainly European customers. The tax levies are for photovoltaic products in mainland China, Taiwan, China and Malaysia, which means that products from other countries and regions can be tax-exempt and construction of overseas factories was once a measure for Chinese PV companies to cope with the European and American contradictions.
"India is very likely this tax, we are still waiting for the results of the survey .Chinese enterprises have a certain amount of overseas production, or tax cuts can be affected by geographical adjustment. 'Peng Peng said,' but the best way Is the Indian government to communicate with Chinese enterprises and trade associations and work together to reduce trade friction.
