London (Platts)--28Feb2013/805 am EST/1305 GMT

The European Commission has opened an anti-dumping probe against Chinese solar glass makers following a request by European manufacturers, in the latest row between China and its Western economic trading partners, the EC said Thursday.

"The initiation is based on a complaint lodged by the association EU ProSun Glass, which claims solar glass from China is being dumped in the EU at prices below market value and causing material injury to the EU solar glass industry," the EC said in statement Thursday.

It said the probe could take up to 15 months to complete, "although under trade defense rules the EU could impose provisional anti-dumping duties within nine months if it considers these necessary," it added.

EU ProSun Glass was set up by EU solar glass manufacturers in early February and is a sister organization of EU Pro Sun, which has been challenging China's export of solar power components to Europe more generally. EU ProSun Glass lodged a complaint with the EU on February 5, arguing that Chinese manufacturers had captured 90% of the imported solar glass market in the EU, which was hitting EU jobs.

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The EC said that in an initial investigation it had found that the complaint showed sufficient evidence of possible price dumping, injury suffered by the EU industry, and a possible causal effect between the two. It said this gave it enough evidence to launch a formal probe.

This is the third competition probe launched against China's solar PV export industry in the last six months. The EC already launched competition probes in November and September 2012 into subsidies for Chinese solar panel makers and alleged dumping of PV equipment respectively, both following complaints from EU Pro-Sun.

But the EC said Thursday's probe was separate and unrelated.

"This investigation has, however, no direct link with the probe related to the imports of solar panels launched by the European Commission last September: it is a stand-alone investigation concerning a clearly distinct product." It said the market for solar glass in the EU was valued at less than Eur200 million ($263 million).

The EC also said that it had not yet received any complaint asking it to investigate whether Chinese solar glass manufacturers were receiving unjustified subsidies.

China has challenged the other EC competition probes into its solar industry and has launched similar investigations against EU manufacturers. European scrutiny of Chinese solar exports comes after a similar probe in the US, which found that 12 categories of Chinese subsidies for its solar manufacturers were illegal and that Chinese exporters had dumped solar cells in the US at margins of between 30% and 250%.

--Paul Whitehead, paul_whitehead@platts.com
--Edited by Jonathan Dart, jonathan_dart@platts.com

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