EoW July 2013

Transatlantic cable

companies to charge more and, as well, limiting the total number of solar panels they may ship. (“US and Europe Prepare to Settle Chinese Solar Panel Cases,” 20 th May) “Negotiations with China are still in a very early stage, so it may take several months before a nal deal, if any, is struck,” Mr Bradsher reported. If an agreement is reached, Chinese companies would no longer be charged steep American taxes on their exports of solar panels. The US is collecting tari s totalling about 30 per cent while the European Union was expected to impose similar tari s of about 50 per cent on 5 th June, with backdating to 5 th March a possibility. Chinese producers have partly bypassed the American tari s by performing one stage in the solar panel manufacturing process outside mainland China: turning solar wafers into solar cells in nearby Taiwan. Mr Bradsher observed that a negotiated deal would close that loophole in the American tari s. The European trade case does not have the same loophole. The goal of both sets of tari s, and of the price and quantity regulations that could replace them, is to protect American and European manufacturers from what they and the administration of US president Barack Obama see as unfair competition. Some two dozen American and European solar panel manufacturers have cut back production or gone bankrupt in the last three years, setbacks widely attributed to the prevalence of underpriced Chinese product in the market.

† Mr McGeehan noted that Verizon stands to save many millions of dollars if it were no longer required to replace damaged copper wiring in ood-prone areas, or maintain existing cables elsewhere. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported in May that another big telecom, AT&T, also intends to “seek authority to serve millions of current wireline customers, mostly in rural areas, with a wireless-only product.”

Trade

At a ‘fork in the road’ with respect to renewable energy, the US will bargain with China on solar panel prices

According to o cials and trade advisers in Beijing, Brussels and Washington, the United States and the European Union have decided to negotiate individual settlements with China in the world’s largest anti-dumping and anti-subsidy trade cases, involving China’s roughly $30 billion a year in solar panel shipments to the West. As noted by Keith Bradsher of the New York Times , a plan that emerged in broad outline in May would essentially carve up the global solar panel market into regional markets. It would sharply raise the price of solar panels exported from China, the world’s dominant producer, by requiring Chinese

20

www.read-eurowire.com

July 2013