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JA Solar Responds to U.S. Department of Commerce’s Preliminary Decision on Antidumping Tariffs on Chinese Solar Products
JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd., one of the world’s largest manufacturers of high-performance solar power products, today responded to the preliminary decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce (“DOC”) on imposing antidumping duties on China-produced solar products.
According to the DOC’s preliminary determination, announced on May 17, 2012, JA Solar’s crystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells produced in China, and modules containing such cells, which are imported to the U.S., would be subject to a preliminary antidumping tariff rate of 31.18%. The tariff decision is expected to be finalized in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Dr. Peng Fang, CEO of JA Solar, said, “We are disappointed by the DOC’s decision. JA Solar believes that setting barriers in the U.S. market to fair global trade will penalize U.S. customers and hinder the growth of the U.S. solar industry.”
“JA Solar is committed to serving our large and growing customer base in the United States, and we have been working since last year to ensure that this ruling would not disrupt our business. In anticipation of the ruling, over the last several months we moved quickly and effectively to establish new supply lines for cells and modules to support the needs of our U.S. customers, while ensuring that we had all the necessary quality control systems and required certifications in place. As a result, the vast majority of the products we have shipped to the U.S. since December 2011 will not be subject to tariffs under the terms laid out in the DOC’s ruling. Further, we believe that JA Solar is significantly less exposed than many of our peers to potential tariffs.”
Dr. Fang continued, “While we believe that tariffs will be detrimental to the growth of the industry, we nevertheless expect the United States to continue to be one of the world’s major solar markets and we are committed to serving our customers there. We are working to establish a
long-term solution to our capacity requirements, including partnering with cell producers based in other regions and actively exploring the feasibility of establishing our own manufacturing facility for solar products outside of China. We aim to ensure that we can meet the growing demand for our products in the U.S., and provide our U.S. customers with access to solar products at globally competitive prices.”
