The Commerce Department on Thursday set initial import duties between 22 percent and 123 percent on solar equipment from India, Laos and Indonesia after determining companies there were dumping the renewable parts into the United States at below-market prices.
The affirmative preliminary determination setting new duty rates on imports of solar cells and panels from those countries came after U.S. manufacturers argued that companies in the Asian countries were undercutting the U.S. market.
The decision on anti-dumping is the latest step in the lengthy proceeding, which earlier this year resulted in preliminary countervailing duty amounts for solar imports from the three countries. Such duties are meant to offset subsidies provided by another country to their domestic manufacturers.
The anti-dumping rates, meanwhile, are meant to confront imports of components priced into the U.S. at unfairly low levels and to help ensure domestic industries are protected from unfair competition. Commerce conducted the anti-dumping duty investigations concurrently with its countervailing duty probe.
