EU imposes tariffs on Chinese producers of glass fibre fabric in China and Egypt

The European Union (EU) on Monday imposed tariffs on Chinese producers of glass fibre fabric in China and Egypt.

The move came after finding the Chinese producers had benefited from unfair subsidies that enabled them to sell at excessively low prices in Europe.

In a report released on Monday, the European Commission, which oversees trade policy in the 27 EU countries, said that the companies had received preferential lending, artificially cheap land and electricity, along with various grants and tax breaks.

The companies include two Egyptian subsidiaries of state-owned China National Building Materials Group Corp (CNBM), marking the EU’s first probe into whether Chinese aid is unfairly helping Chinese companies based abroad.

Combined with related anti-dumping duties, the EU is set to apply tariffs of 30.0 percent to 99.7 percent, the higher rates applying to China-based companies and the lower rates to the operations in Egypt, the EU official journal read.

The tariffs are backdated to January 22, Reuters reported. The European Commission found the market share of the producers in China and Egypt surged to 31 percent in 2018 from 23 percent in 2015, while their average sales price declined by 14 percent.

The EU is also probing into alleged unfair subsidies received by CNBM subsidiary Jushi in Egypt regarding glass fibre reinforcements. It set provisional duties of 8.7 percent in that case. EU’s final findings are due in July.