The European Union has issued its initial findings into the claim and complaint that Chinese manufacturers have been selling aerial work platforms in Europe at ‘dumping’ prices, which has the potential to damage European based industry, reducing their revenues, profitability and employment levels.
See: EU anti-dumping investigation into Chinese platform manufacturers
Having found examples of possible pricing issues and then measured and compared the level of Chinese imports over the period of December to March 2024 to the same period a year earlier, it found that imports of Chinese built products increased 16.1 percent in the first quarter. As a result, it has issued preliminary tariff levels for each manufacturer – See below – and ordered the customs authorities to start registering all imports of aerial lifts from China, with the possibility that the tariffs may be charged retrospectively depending on its ongoing investigation, the inputs received from companies affected and interested parties which now have the chance to comment on these findings.
In the words of the document:
“Therefore, the Commission has concluded that there is sufficient evidence to justify making the imports of the product concerned subject to registration in accordance with Article 14(5) of the basic Regulation.”
“All interested parties are invited to make their views known in writing and to provide supporting evidence. Furthermore, the Commission may hear interested parties, provided that they make a request in writing and show that there are particular reasons why they should be heard.”
“The customs authorities are hereby directed, pursuant to Article 14(5) of Regulation (EU) 2016/1036, to take the appropriate steps to register imports of mobile access equipment designed for the lifting of persons, self-propelled, with a maximum working height of 6 metres or more, and imports of pre-assembled or ready-to-assemble sections thereof, excluding individual components when presented separately, and excluding person lifting equipment mounted on vehicles.”
The provisional tariffs are as follows:
Sinoboom – 56.1%
JLG – 23.6%
Genie – 25.6%
Dingli – 31.3%
Other manufacturers that co-operated with the investigation: – 32%
Manufacturers not sampled/All others – 56.1%
The list of non co-operating companies includes:
LiuGong
Zoomlion
XCMG
Sunward
Fonteq
Reeslift
The documentation is extensive and full of legal text, jargon and caveats. And although it was published on May 23rd, for some reason we have only just received it, in spite of communicating directly with the Commission’s media department. As a result we have only had an hour or so to digest the information. As a result, we will ask more questions, speak to some of those affected and update this item as soon as we learn more and then at that time add a comment. In the meantime, we will suspend the comment section – although you are most welcome to send any inputs and comments to [email protected]
UPDATE
The Commission has now issued a further statement clarifiying that the group it previously listed as companies not co-operating, was actually companies that had not been sampled – checked – as part of the initial investigation.
Initial Comments received – unedited
From Sinoboom
“Sinoboom has received news of the proposed tariff on its imports of MEWPs to the EU with great concern and surprise. The privately owned company has cooperated fully with the investigations and supplied all required information. It is now liaising with the European Commission to understand how to resolve this challenging and concerning situation. An appeal is being prepared.”
“Sinoboom and its team of employees around the world remain committed to providing a high quality, competitive customer oriented service. Sinoboom is led by the original founders, the husband and wife team of Susan Xu and Stephen Liu. They extend their thanks to all Sinoboom partners and team members in Europe for their support at this challenging moment in the company’s history.”
“The company continues to collaborate fully with all relevant authorities and is determined that there will be no interruption in the services provided to its customers and its continuing growth strategy. This includes the ongoing development of its manufacturing facilities in Poland.”