Seven solar cell makers in Taiwan face investigation - report

Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs will soon hand over seven domestic photovoltaic (PV) cell makers to the prosecution, as the companies have allegedly threatened ministry officials in connection to a product mislabeling case.

In particular, the unnamed manufacturers have allegedly labeled products produced in China as Taiwan-made on purpose, Taipei Times said Monday. This allows them to circumvent European import tariffs for Chinese PV equipment.

After imposing fines on companies mislabeling their products as early as July, the Bureau of Foreign Trade set up a new export policy in August, aimed at limiting such attempts in the future. Still, the seven firms facing investigation did not only continue to violate both local and European restrictions, but tried to come out clean of the situation by threatening ministry officials, deputy director-general, David Hsu, was cited as saying.

In May, the EU launched an anti-dumping investigation against Taiwanese and Malaysian solar cell and module manufacturers after Chinese exporters were accused of selling their products through them. All sides are waiting to see if the block will remove the Minimum Import Pricing (MIP) and all duties on China-made solar modules and cells in December.

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