The EU is cracking down on Chinese biodiesel imports after investigating complaints that a flood of unfairly priced renewable fuel is undercutting producers in the bloc and hurting workers.
The EU has already set provisional duties for electric vehicles made in China over what it sees as unfair subsidies in its most high-profile case.
The European Commission would impose provisional anti-dumping duties on Chinese imports of biofuels in four weeks, ranging from 12.8 percent to 36.4 percent, the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) said in a statement, citing a document from regulators.
Photo: REUTERS
“Our European businesses have been suffering for far too long under the pressure of unfairly priced Chinese imports and we are very happy to see the European Commission take action,” EBB president Dickon Posnett said.
The finding comes as EU fuel producers worry about being undermined by companies in Asia that are possibly mixing fuels with cheaper ingredients and then mislabeling them to qualify for incentives outlined by the 27-nation bloc’s renewable energy targets.
Chinese companies exported 1.8 million tonnes of biodiesel to the EU last year, 90 percent of all Chinese biodiesel exports, the EBB said.
Similar concerns have taken hold in the US, where business groups are urging US President Joe Biden’s administration to boost levies on Chinese used cooking oil used to make low-carbon fuels.
The duties would be positive for EU producers, although the region has built up an ample supply of biodiesel that any immediate impacts could be muted, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Brett Gibbs said.
The EBB, which represents European biodiesel producers and filed its complaint over Chinese biodiesel last year, said on Friday that it is “gravely concerned” that the EU did not include Chinese sustainable aviation fuel in the anti-dumping measures. The group said it would address the matter with regulators as a top priority.
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