According to the new EU-China agreement, wafers, cells, and modules exported to EU from the ninety-four Chinese PV companies can be exempted from anti-dumping tariffs. The minimum price for Chinese modules shipped to EU is set at €0.56/Watt and the volume limit is 7GW per year.
With first round of quota allocation being completed, the second round of allocation scheme will soon be released, while the remaining 10% of the quota allocation is still under intense discussion.
The previously proposed quota allocation was a ratio of 6:3:1. In another word, 60% of the quota will be assigned based on historical export data, 30% will be allocated to 36 companies which had cooperated in the investigation, and 10% will be given to smaller enterprises. However, a new version of quota allocation has changed the ratio to 6.5:2.5:1 because many PV companies opposed to the previous proposal.
According to Yingli’s sales director, Zhao Zelin, the quota has been allocated to Yingli. “We will be able to get 10%, which is 0.7GW,” says Mr. Zhao. This could be the largest portion being allocated among the ninety-four Chinese PV companies. But for Yingli, it’s only half of the amount shipped to EU last year which was 1.45GW.
In the meantime, Mr. Zhao indicates that since the price regulated this year - €0.56/Watt is much higher than last year, net profit per watt can increase by approximately 25%. Thus, companies’ actual losses turn out to be less significant. He believes that competition among Chinese PV companies in the European market will remain.
JA Solar’s person in charge holds the same perspective. Chinese PV companies, especially first-tier companies, will not stop competing in the Western markets but will adjust on how companies operate and will shift its focus from price to quality and customer service.
In the PV industry, small-medium companies have started to loss its competitiveness in the European market while some of them may exit from the European market. Based on the current situation, even the ninety-four companies with quota allocation may be dismissed from the competition, not to mention those that didn’t get quota.
