The US-China anti-dumping and countervailing final determination is expected to be announced on December 17th and the whole investigation procedures will be completed by January 30th, 2015.

This is a trade war initiated by SolarWorld as SolarWorld claimed that China is dumping solar panels into the U.S. below cost. Afterwards, Chinese manufacturers began shifting cell-making offshore, notably to Taiwan. Therefore, SolarWorld decided to launch another investigation on Taiwan PV products as well.

In the preliminary determination announced by the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), anti-dumping tax rates of 20.86%-27.59% were imposed on Taiwan producers, while Chinese producers were being charged anti-subsidy tax rates of 18.56%-35.21 and anti-dumping tax rates of 26.33%-165.04%.

“There shouldn’t be significant changes to the final result. But we still can’t be sure until those that are attending the public hearing are back to Taiwan and China. The penalty standard will also be notified when the final determination is announced,” said Angus Kao, a research manager at EnergyTrend, a division of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce.

US-China Anti-dumping and Countervailing Investigation Schedule: