Top executives at four of China’s biggest solar-panel makers said the government hasn’t given them special treatment, rebutting a US complaint that they got benefits including subsidies and preferential loans.
Instead, China’s success in nurturing its solar industry comes from “the wisdom and intelligence of Chinese entrepreneurs” who are more sensitive to market trends and use the best technologies, Suntech Power Holdings Chief Executive Officer Shi Zhengrong told reporters in Beijing yesterday.
Shi and three other CEOs defended the country’s solar industry following the Commerce Department’s Nov. 9 decision to investigate a complaint led by a US unit of Germany’s Solarworld AG (SWV) that could slap duties on more than $1 billion of Chinese imports. The executives said the duties would harm the American solar industry and set back environmental protection.
“The Chinese government has accorded fair and equal treatment to local companies and foreign companies,” Trina Solar Ltd. (TSL) Chief Executive Gao Jifan said. “The Chinese government has opened the door to all companies, including foreign companies.”
Shi, Gao and Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ)’s Shawn Qu all said China’s solar industry had to pay higher interest rates for bank loans than US and European competitors, and paid market rates for loans. With the appreciation of the yuan, “the loan rate we are paying is probably equivalent to over 10 percent,” Qu said.
SolarWorld’s complaint is “unfair” because it receives subsidies in Europe and the US, Shi said.
Solarworld request
The executives, who also included Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Chief Executive Officer Miao Liansheng, were responding to a request by the US unit of Bonn-based Solarworld and six other companies that President Barack Obama’s administration impose duties on Chinese imports they say are being dumped with low-cost credit from state-run banks. On Nov. 25, China launched its own investigation into stimulus programs on renewable energy in five American states.
Five US companies have been awarded $1.56 billion in guarantees through a Energy Department program championed by Obama to spur alternative-energy development. That’s a fraction of the $34.4 billion that Chinese lenders led by the state-run China Development Bankhave offered to solar manufacturers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Shi said much of the credit offered by Beijing-based China Development Bank hadn’t been used. Of the $29 billion in credit CDB has extended to four solar companies and one wind company, only $866 million has been drawn, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Prices fall
The US probe comes as prices for the wafers used to make cells, the finished cells and the modules installed in power plants have all plummeted due to supply gluts. Monocrystalline and multicrystalline silicon solar cell costs plunged 12.7 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively, from mid-October to mid- November, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said.
A US International Trade Commission panel will vote on whether there’s a case to continue with a probe on Dec. 2.
China exported $3.5 billion of solar goods, including solar cells, to North America last year, according to the China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Machinery and Electronic Products. North America is China’s third biggest solar export market, following Europe and Asia in 2010, amounting about 11 percent of China’s global solar exports.
US exports of solar products climbed 83 percent last year to $5.63 billion as increasing production in China drove up sales of manufacturing equipment and raw materials, the U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association said Aug. 29. Polysilicon producers including MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (WFR) and Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. exported $2.52 billion of the basic material used to make solar cells and exports of capital equipment were $1.4 billion.
