Europe and China Agree to Settle Solar Panel Fight

NYTimes.com
The European Union’s trade chief said on Saturday that a deal had been reached with China to settle a dispute over exports of low-cost solar panels that had threatened to set off a wider trade war between two of the world’s largest economies.
The settlement essentially involves setting a fairly high minimum price [0.56€/W] for sales of Chinese-made solar panels in the European Union to try to prevent them from undercutting European producers. (...) The deal immediately met with ferocious criticism from the European manufacturers that had filed the complaint. (...) The agreement “is contrary in every respect to European law,” said Milan Nitzschke, the president of EU ProSun, an industry group. A minimum price of 0.55 to 0.57 euros was at the level of “the current dumping price for Chinese modules,” the group said in a statement.
The arrangement would cover exports from 90 of about 140 Chinese exporters that were examined during the investigation, and that represent 60 percent of the panels sold in Europe, the government official said. Those 90 companies would no longer face tariffs that were put in place in June. Chinese exporters that did not agree to the terms will still face tariffs that are set to rise to 47.6 percent on Aug. 6 from the current level of 11.8 percent, the official said.