The Indian Ministry of Commerce announced on July 30th local time to launch a defensive tariff (safeguard), which will impose a 25% protection tariff on solar cells (whether packaged or not). This measure has been protested by the Indian industry, so business The Ministry will postpone the announcement on August 13.
Announcement Document F.No. 354/2018 – TRI (Pt) of the Ministry of Revenue Tax Research Unit, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, according to the High Court of Orissa (The Hon' Ble High Court of Orissa) The interim order of the appeal order - 'will not adhere to the levy', the 25% defensive tariff announced by the Ministry of Commerce on July 30, that is, the defensive tariff is temporarily not enforced.
India's defensive tariffs were proposed in February this year. On July 16, the taxation proposal was announced. On July 30, the Ministry of Commerce announced the announcement, and the announcement on August 13 was suspended.
Market impact
In the analysis of India's defense tariffs, the new energy research center of Jibang New Energy Research Center, EnergyTrend, pointed out that 25% of the defensive tariffs are two-sided design, which can not effectively block China's low-cost batteries, and the module continues to sell. Into India, it will also increase the cost of power station developers. Therefore, defensive tariffs will impact India's domestic market demand, but also can not effectively create domestic production capacity.
On July 31, Uttar Pradesh announced the suspension of 1GW power station bidding. SECI also announced in early August that it cancelled 2.4GW of the completed 3GW bid, leaving only the 600MW bid obtained by ACME Solar. Both bids were due to ' The price is too low' and was canceled. Since this has precedents in India, it is currently impossible to conclude that it is affected by defensive tariffs. However, 25% of the tariffs will indeed have an impact on the power station market. EnergyTrend of Jibang New Energy Network has estimated that If the trade barriers announced on July 30 are implemented, the annual demand for 2018 will fall to 8.5~9.6GW.
After the implementation of the defensive tariffs, India's follow-up import and export situation is expected to maintain a stable level, and excess capacity will have room for export. Therefore, the price of the Indian market will be expected to be killed. India's demand for the second half of 2018 still has the opportunity to stand up. 5GW, the annual demand comes to 10GW, depending on the import status of the third quarter.
Chart: China's exports to India and India's grid-connected statistics
The uncertainty of the Indian policy will still affect the market sentiment, and the continued suspension or cancellation of the official bidding, whether the subsequent demand can maintain steady growth to achieve the goal of 100 GW in 2022, still need to wait and see. On the other hand, in India After the temporary easing of trade barriers, the biggest change in the global market is whether the European MIP will expire as scheduled on September 3. If the MIP expires after expiration, a new wave of global price wars can be expected.
