Anti-dumping wind raided 30% of domestic ceramic companies or bankruptcy

On March 17th, the European Union made anti-dumping preliminary decisions on ceramics produced in China: None of the Chinese enterprises obtained market economy status, except for 3 companies that received tax treatment rates of 35.5%, 36.6%, and 26.2% respectively, and a few enterprises In addition to the EU's anti-dumping investigations, which resulted in a tax rate of 32.3%, more than 1,500 domestic ceramic companies face a national tax rate of 73%. Some experts said that about 30% of companies face bankruptcy due to cost squeeze.
According to the procedures, temporary tariffs will be implemented for half a year from March 17 to September 16. On September 17, the final decision will be made as to whether to levy a five-year formal anti-dumping tax.

A person from the Fair Trade Bureau of Guangdong Province told the reporter that the EU Commission had started brewing in 2009. In the past two years, we have done a lot of coordination and negotiation work, but in the end it failed to prevent the case from being filed. “Guangdong Foshan has the largest ceramic enterprise in the country and is also the largest concentration place for exports to the European Union. This case will have a huge impact on the company.”

Export blocked or intensified domestic price war From an official briefing of relevant departments of the Chinese government issued by the European Commission, it was learned that Guangdong New Runcheng Ceramics Co., Ltd., Shandong Yadi Ceramics Co., Ltd. and Guangdong Weimei Ceramics Co., Ltd., etc. Ceramic companies received case processing, the tax rates were 35.5%, 36.6%, 26.2%, respectively, but the corporate tax rate for cooperative but not drawn was 32.3%, and other ceramic companies had a national general tax rate of 73%.

In May 2010, the European Union of Ceramic Tile Producers, representing the interests of European manufacturers, formally applied to the European Commission for anti-dumping measures against Chinese tiles. These companies claim that the price of Chinese tiles in the European market is too low compared with the prices in the US market, which has led to a significant increase in their market share in Europe, which has adversely affected similar European manufacturers. On June 19, the European Commission announced that it officially filed a case and proposed to impose a punitive tariff of up to 430.5% on Chinese ceramic companies.

Lan Weibing, director of the Foshan Ceramics Office of the China Ceramic Industry Association, told reporters that there are more than 1,500 Chinese ceramics companies involved in the EU anti-dumping case, among which Foshan enterprises accounted for 70%, and the EU market accounted for 1/10 of the Foshan ceramics international market.

Foshan, Guangdong Province is known as the “Southern Ceramic Capital” at home and abroad. In 1984, Foshan introduced the first foreign construction ceramics production line and began to lead the Chinese ceramic industry.

It is understood that Foshan's tile companies currently account for about 70% of the country, there are about 30 ceramic companies packaged by the EU countries to do OEM production, completely without their own sales network, under heavy tax these companies are likely to face a crisis of closure; There are also many foreign-based foreign trade companies with an average profit of only 5%, which can be imagined at a general tax rate of 75%.

According to sources from Foshan ceramics, after the preliminary results were announced, some Foshan companies had already given up their initiative to abandon the European market and turned their energies to Southeast Asia or Africa. Several medium-sized ceramic companies have also remained silent about whether they will shrink the European market. Most of them are reluctant to answer on the grounds of “corporate secrets”.

What is even more worrying is that a number of ceramics industry sources stated that the impact of this punitive tariff is not only on the export side. Due to excess capacity, the future price war in the domestic market is inevitable.