Anti-dumping duties on Canadian Solar

Canadian Solar was amongst the top 3 solar companies by revenue and profits in 2014. Canadian Solar has shipped more than 10 GW of solar modules and developed more than 1.4 GW of solar plants globally. The company is headquartered in Canada, but has most of its manufacturing in China. It thus imports solar products from its Chinese factories for further selling. This makes the company liable to anti-dumping duties. However, the company has relatively small business in Canada when compared to the US and it is slowly expanding into Japan and China as well. Hence the company will not be adversely hit by the Canadian duty imposition. The company gave an outstanding performance in the last year, mostly beating its own guidance on many fronts. It is also expecting a potential yieldco in the coming quarters, with a strong supporting project pipeline.

What has happened?

After US and Europe imposed duties on Chinese solar imports, it is now Canada joining the line. The Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) announced anti-dumping duties on a number of Chinese solar companies, starting July 4th for a period of five years. It started after a complaint was lodged with Canada Border Services Agency in December 2014, after which provisional duties were imposed in March 2015. The final duty imposed by department of Commerce comes out at 15.42% for anti-dumping duties (AD) and 15.24% for countervailing duties on crystalline silicon solar cells made by Canadian Solar in China, whether or not assembled into modules.

China said the imposition of duties will have a relatively smaller impact as the Canadian market is small in size.

“We do not treat this as a serious threat,” Meng Xian’gan, deputy director of the China Renewable Energy Society, told local press in China. “The makor markets now for solar products around the world are Japan, the U.S. and China. The Canadian market is a small one”.

Source: PV-magazine

Canadian Solar’s Response

Canadian Solar responded, saying the decision will not affect its Canadian business. “As we have a module factory in Canada, with 500 MW production capacity per year, most of our modules supplied to Canada markets are produced locally,” said the spokesperson.

Source: PV-magazine

“While we are disappointed with the DOC final determination, we will continue to defend our position with the ITC ahead of its final determination in November. We will also remain committed to the U.S. solar energy market, leveraging our global supply-chain to provide fairly priced solar energy solutions, to support our employees, partners and customer base,” concluded Dr. Shawn Qu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar.

Source: Canadian Solar

How will the duties effect CSIQ sales

The company has a solar module and cell production capacity of 3.5 GW and 2 GW respectively in China. Since majority of the production happens in China, the company will attract duties, since the products will be exported from China. Canadian Solar has increased its percentage of sales in the Asian countries, from ~19% in Q1 2014 to ~34% in Q1 2015. Though this sale will not attract any duties, the ASP in Asian countries are very low (except Japan) when compared to the US. Sales is Canada comprise a small component, since the Canadian market is relatively smaller in size. Moreover, the company also has module manufacturing facilities in Canada which will mitigate some of the risk involved.