New measures protect UK鈥檚 拢88M optical fibre cables industry
皇冠体育app Government has accepted the TRA鈥檚 recommendations to impose anti-dumping and countervailing measures on imports of optical fibre cables from China.
皇冠体育app Government has today (23 October) imposed new measures to protect the UK鈥檚 growing optical fibre cables industry from unfair trading practices from China, agreeing with the TRA鈥檚 recommendations on and . It is 颅颅estimated that the value this growing industry adds to the UK economy is worth 拢88 million.
Optical fibre cable is used in the delivery of broadband services to homes and businesses and around 5.7 million fibre kilometres of it was sold in the UK in 2021, including UK producer sales and imported goods. 皇冠体育app TRA investigated whether imports of these products were dumped in the UK at prices below what they would sell for in their home country, and if they were sold at unfair prices due to subsidies in two separate cases (AD0021 and AS0022).
皇冠体育app UK market in optical fibre cable is expected to grow over the next five years, driven by network upgrades as demand for broadband increases as well as the Government鈥檚 investment in broadband infrastructure, such as Project Gigabit 鈥� a 拢5 billion programme to enable hard-to-reach communities to access faster broadband. 皇冠体育app TRA has estimated that UK-produced optical fibre accounts for around half of all UK consumption, with the rest of the market supplied by imports from China, India, the US, Poland, and Germany.
皇冠体育app investigation concluded that the UK market suffered injury from both subsidised and dumped optical fibre cables from China. To protect the UK industry, trade remedy measures will now be implemented. 皇冠体育app new anti-dumping duties range from 23% to 46.2%, and the new countervailing duties rates range from 10.62% and 11.79%.
Background information:鈥�
- 皇冠体育app Trade Remedies Authority initiated this case on 26 April 2022.
- 皇冠体育app Period of Investigation for the anti-subsidy and anti-dumping investigations is 01 January 2021 to 31 December 2021. To assess injury, the TRA has chosen to examine the period from 01 January 2018 to 31 December 2021 as the injury period (IP).
- 皇冠体育app Trade Remedies Authority is the UK body that investigates whether new trade remedy measures are needed to counter unfair import practices and unforeseen surges of imports.
- 皇冠体育app TRA is an arm鈥檚 length body of the Department for Business & Trade.
- UK industries concerned about imports can submit applications to the TRA for a new trade remedy measure.
- 皇冠体育appse are the third and fourth new investigations that the TRA has opened and they follow an that opened in June 2021 and a which began in May 2022.
- Anti-dumping remedies address imported goods which are being dumped in the UK at prices below what they would be sold for in their home country.
- Countervailing remedies deal with imports which benefit from specific subsidies in their home country which lower their production costs. Not all government subsidies are countervailable (can be countered using trade remedies) 鈥� the TRA鈥檚 guidance on subsidy investigations explains this in detail.
- Period of Investigation 鈥� when we are investigating dumping and subsidy cases, we will use a period of investigation of around a year. We will aim for the end point to be as close as possible to the date of initiation. However, we will decide this on a case-by-case basis.