TPT July 2012

Global Marketplace

› The US Commerce Department on 17 May announced the imposition of anti-dumping tariffs of more than 31% on solar panels from China, the world’s largest exporter of the units. The department said that consumers in the US bought $3.1 billion worth of Chinese solar cells last year, giving China more than half the American market for the devices. The New York Times noted that the move was certain to infuriate Chinese officials, who point out that the US has for years urged China to embrace renewable energy as a way to reduce air pollution, combat climate change, and limit the need for oil imports from the politically volatile Mideast. According to the Times ’s Keith Bradsher and Diane Cardwell, the American decision was made by civil servants in a quasi- judicial process and does not represent a deliberate attempt by the Obama administration to confront China on trade policy. But, they said, that distinction has been largely lost in China. Support by Beijing for solar energy is an important feature of China’s current Five-Year Plan, which runs through 2015, although Premier Wen Jiabao said in March that he was becoming concerned about overcapacity in the sector. Post-tsunami Japan Its economy strengthening, a nation long given to inwardness looks for outside investment to keep the momentum going Data released by the Japanese Cabinet Office on 17 May showed that Japan’s economy, the world’s third-largest after those of the United States and China, expanded at an annualised rate of 4.1% during the January-to-March period, a faster clip than economists had forecast. The strong report signified the third consecutive quarter of economic growth for Japan and eclipsed the annualised 2.2% growth posted by the US for the first quarter. Even so, memories that stretch back to Japan’s listless economy before the natural and nuclear catastrophes of last year have been shaping a new mind-set in this former manufacturing powerhouse known for its exports and overseas investment. As noted by Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times , Japan is finding that it must do what it has long resisted: welcome foreign manufacturers. (“Japan Looks Beyond Its Borders for Investors,” 8 March) Writing from Aizu-Wakamatsu, an industrial city in Fukushima Prefecture, centre of the nuclear disaster of March 2011, the Tokyo-based Ms Tabuchi interviewed an official who had executed a stark role reversal in a nation accustomed to sending factory jobs to China. Last September, doing “the unthinkable,” Mayor Shohei Muroi flew to China to ask a fast- growing maker of heavy machinery to set up shop in Aizu- Wakamatsu.

“Since buying ore will be costlier, [Indian] companies who need it have to neutralise it,” the SAIL chief told PTI. “This is why we should export it in the value-added form, not the mineral form. It will create employment and investment opportunities for India to have the value addition.” › Mr Verma said that the Chinese steel companies had shown keen interest in his overture. He noted that China has been importing 75 to 80 million tons of iron ore every year from India alone. He observed, “That means there is lot of incentive for setting up pelletisation plants in India.” Trade cases › The European Union has threatened to impose tariffs on some steel tubes from three nations whose exports are allegedly being sold below cost in the bloc. The EU on 2 April opened a probe into whether producers in Ukraine, Turkey, and the Republic of Macedonia are dumping welded tubes, pipes, and hollow profiles in the euro zone. The inquiry excludes hollow sections made of cast iron or stainless steel as well as line pipe and tubing used in the oil and natural gas industries. The European Commission, the trade authority of the 27-member EU, said its investigation will determine whether the Ukrainian, Turkish, and Macedonian shipments are “being dumped and whether the dumped imports have caused injury to the union industry.” The EC has nine months to decide whether to impose provisional anti-dumping duties for half a year; EU governments then have 15 months to decide whether to apply “definitive” levies for five years. The dumping inquiry stems from a 16 February complaint by a group speaking for EU manufacturers accounting for more than a quarter of the bloc’s production of welded tube, pipe, and hollow profiles. The commission did not identify individual producers. › India on 8 April was reported to be preparing to challenge a United States import duty on steel pipes by requesting “consultations” at the World Trade Organization. In the latest in a series of recent disputes between the two allies, a senior Indian trade ministry official told Reuters, “[The US is] in absolute and total breach of the WTO. There is no subsidy involved.” The US Commerce Department in March set a preliminary import duty of nearly 286% on circular welded carbon-quality steel pipe from India to offset government subsidies. A final decision is expected in August. The Indian government will challenge the allegation that the manufacture of the pipes has in fact been subsidised. The official in New Delhi said Washington imposed the duty on the Indian material because a portion of the iron ore used to produce the pipe is provided by state-run NMDC – the country’s largest miner. The challenge mounted by India will apparently turn on the question of whether or not public- sector involvement implicitly signifies subsidisation.

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J uly 2012