The European initiative has today, September 25, filed a complaint asking for an investigation into "illegal" subsides provided to Chinese photovoltaic manufacturers from the country's government.
In a statement released on the first day of the 27th EU PVSEC tradeshow, EU ProSun said its has identified "many forms of significant" subsidies issued by the Chinese government to its domestic manufacturers.
"For instance," stated EU ProSun president, Milan Nitzschke, "Chinese banks implement government policy by giving very low interest rates to solar manufacturers, and, if the borrower cannot pay back the loan, it may be written-off, extended indefinitely or paid off by other government-controlled entities. This makes it easier, cheaper, and a lot less risky for Chinese solar companies to obtain financing."
The initiative goes on to quote Bloomberg New Finance, which has said that since 2010, the China Development Bank Corp. has extended 33 billion in credit lines to 12 Chinese solar companies.
Nitzschke added, "Chinese government subsidies are only available to Chinese companies. Massive subsidies and state intervention have stimulated overcapacity more than 20 times total Chinese consumption and close to double total global demand. Hence, more than 90% of Chinese production had to be exported.
"Irrational overproduction on this scale cannot generate profits. Chinese subsidies shield manufacturers from insolvency, and are pumped into solar companies even if they are unprofitable. Most Chinese solar companies would have gone bankrupt a long time ago if not for endless government subsidies. Meanwhile over 20 major European solar manufacturers have become insolvent in 2012 alone."
On September 6, the European Commission launched an anti-dumping investigation into imports of photovoltaic cells, wafers and modules from China, after EU ProSun, led by SolarWorld and said to be backed by over 20 unidentified European solar manufacturers, filed an anti-dumping complaint.
Popular content
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.