The US has imposed preliminary new tariffs on solar imports from Southeast Asia

The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Tuesday anti-subsidy, countervailing duty on solar cells imported from Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia.

A preliminary decision published on Commerce's site shows that the agency has calculated tariff rates ranging from 0.14% to 3,293.61% depending on the company for solar cells from four Southeast Asian countries.

Next year, a final decision will be taken.

This announcement is the second of two preliminary decisions that the Commerce Department will be making this year on a trade case filed by Hanwha Qcells in Korea, Arizona's First Solar and a number of smaller companies who are seeking to protect the billions of dollars invested in U.S. manufacturing of solar panels.

Commerce Department officials have calculated that general subsidy rates for Malaysian imports are 9.13%, for Cambodian imports they are 8.25%, for Thai imports 23.06% and for Vietnamese imports 2.85%.

The duty rates for large manufacturers are different. Commerce, for example, calculated a duty of only 0.14% on products manufactured by China's Trina Solar.

Commerce calculated that Hanwha Qcells, one of the companies involved in the petition, had a duty of 14.72 % on products manufactured in Malaysia. Reporting by Nichola in Los Angeles Editing done by Chris Reese, Matthew Lewis

(source: Reuters)