Published on May 23, 2022

The UK Government’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), which is the arm’s length body at the Department of International Trade (DIT) and is tasked with investigating “unfair import practices and unforeseen surges of imports“, has opened two new investigations into imports of fibre optic cables from China.

As nearly all of our readers will already know, optical fibre cables transmit data using laser light and come in all sorts of different sizes and designs. Some are used in the access network to help bring gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband closer to homes, while others are used for core network connectivity, subsea links or high-capacity Ethernet connections (leased lines) for businesses and backhaul etc.

The cables themselves are fairly cheap, at least when compared with legacy copper lines, but they’ll still attract a fair cost when deployed at scale – something a lot of broadband operators are currently doing. Such cables can be purchased from various UK and European suppliers (e.g. Emtelle, Hexatronic, Prysmian etc.), but they may also be important from countries like China (not a week seems to go by without them spamming our inbox).

In this case, a complaint from Prysmian Cables & Systems Limited appears to have prompted the TRA to open two investigations into imports of single-mode optical fibre cables from China. The first (AD0021) is an anti-dumping investigation to determine whether imports of these products are being dumped in the UK at prices below what they would sell for in their home country.

The second (AS0022) is an anti-subsidy investigation to determine whether the Chinese imports entering the UK market are also benefiting from subsidies which lower their production costs. The investigations will naturally also consider whether these imports are damaging the UK industry for fibre optic cables.

The TRA intends to conduct an Economic Interest Test (EIT) as part of its investigation to assess whether a new trade remedy measure would be in the UK’s economic interest.

    Oliver Griffiths, TRA Chief Executive, said:

    “Fibre optic cable is broadband’s workhorse. These investigations will examine whether fibre optic cable from China is being traded unfairly and assess its impact on the UK economy.”

The TRA will now seek information from all interested parties to establish whether imports of fibre optic cables from China are being dumped in the UK at prices below their normal value, whether they benefit from government subsidies, whether these imports are causing injury to UK industry and whether it would be in the UK’s interests for measures to be put in place to mitigate any injury.

The period of investigation is 1st January – 31st December 2021, while the injury period is 1st January 2018 – 31st December 2021.

Source: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2022/04/anti-dumping-uk-probes-imports-of-chinese-fibre-optic-cables.html