New measures protect UK’s £88M optical fibre cables industry

The Government has accepted the TRA’s recommendations to impose anti-dumping and countervailing measures on imports of optical fibre cables from China

The Government has today (23 October) imposed new measures to protect the UK’s growing optical fibre cables industry from unfair trading practices from China, agreeing with the TRA’s recommendations on dumping and subsidisation. It is ­­estimated that the value this growing industry adds to the UK economy is worth £88 million.

Optical fibre cable is used in the delivery of broadband services to homes and businesses and around 5.7 million fibre kilometres of it was sold in the UK in 2021, including UK producer sales and imported goods. The TRA investigated whether imports of these products were dumped in the UK at prices below what they would sell for in their home country, and if they were sold at unfair prices due to subsidies in two separate cases (AD0021 and AS0022).

The UK market in optical fibre cable is expected to grow over the next five years, driven by network upgrades as demand for broadband increases as well as the Government’s investment in broadband infrastructure, such as Project Gigabit – a £5 billion programme to enable hard-to-reach communities to access faster broadband. The TRA has estimated that UK-produced optical fibre accounts for around half of all UK consumption, with the rest of the market supplied by imports from China, India, the US, Poland, and Germany.

The investigation concluded that the UK market suffered injury from both subsidised and dumped optical fibre cables from China. To protect the UK industry, trade remedy measures will now be implemented. The new anti-dumping duties range from 23% to 46.2%, and the new countervailing duties rates range from 10.62% and 11.79%.

From:
Trade Remedies Authority