China gathered photovoltaic energy companies to convey “the importance and urgency” of limiting fierce competition in a sector marked by excess capacity and price wars to maintain market share.
The Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced today, in a statement published on its portal, the meeting held on Friday with the industry association and key companies, such as state-owned electricity suppliers Huaneng, Datang, Huadian, and SPIC, the energy company CHN Energy, and the nuclear operator CNNC.
The authorities called for the “advancement of the ‘anti-rollback’ campaign in the photovoltaic sector,” referring to a term that has become popular in recent years, describing a cycle of excess capacity and price wars that ends up eroding companies’ profit margins — a situation that has been repeated in other sectors, such as electric vehicles.
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At the meeting, there were calls for greater coordination between government departments and concerted efforts to continuously strengthen sector management in areas such as capacity control, standards guidance, innovation-based development, pricing, quality supervision, mergers and acquisitions, and intellectual property protection, the statement noted.
According to financial news agency Bloomberg, this is at least the third time Beijing has called the sector’s attention in the last 12 months, this time focusing on state-owned enterprises that buy solar energy-related products.
Following the release of the statement, the main companies in the sector recorded gains on the Chinese stock exchanges during the morning session, with Xinjiang Daqo New Energy (up 6.6%) leading the gains in mainland China and Flat Glass (up 8.3%) doing the same on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
