China may Impose Polysilicon Import Penalty Tariff by Early April

 
China may impose a penalty tariff on polysilicon imports from the US and South Korea starting from early April, market sources said on March. 20.

There was widespread expectation of Beijing to make the decision by 20 February. However, it was delayed and now the market said the decision is likely to firm up by early next month.

"China is being confronted by ADD issues from the US, the European Union and South Korea. So naturally, their decision-making process in its own ADD has been delayed," said a northeast Asian producer of polysilicon.

Polysilicon is the raw material in making solar wafers, cells and modules.
If imposed, the penalty tariff on imported polysilicon into China is expected to be 30-50% or higher, which will lead to higher polysilicon prices in China because more downstream solar makers will rely heavily on domestic polysilicon instead of imports with high tariffs, market participants said.

While China may soon impose a penalty tariff on polysilicon imports from the US and South Korea, the EU is tightening the monitoring of solar products being exported from China to help its own dumping investigation.

The EU started registering some solar products coming from China from 6 March to see if such products are hurting solar companies in the EU.
The registration process was started exactly six months after the EU launched anti-dumping probe on 6 September 2012.

The EU will announce the preliminary determination of the anti-dumping and countervailing probe of solar products originating from China on around 5 June and 7 August 2013 respectively.

The spot price of Asian polysilicon was assessed at $16-19/kg ($16,000-19,000/tonne) (€12,480-14,820/tonne) FOB (free on board) NE (northeast) Asia in the week ended 13 March unchanged over the previous week.

Domestic polysilicon prices were assessed at yuan (CNY) 140,000-150,000/tonne ($22,508-24,116/tonne) DEL (delivered) China, unchanged over the previous week, according to ICIS data.