Can Anti-Dumping Duties Change The Fate Of Borosil Renewables?

A recent investigation report by the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) has recommended the imposition of anti-dumping duties on solar glass. This seemingly opened up a small window of relief for Indian solar glass makers like Borosil Renewables.

The company was earlier going all out to halt the alleged dumping of solar glass at ultra-cheap prices in the Indian solar market. Borosil Renewables alleged that this fierce low-price competition hurt the prospects of domestic solar glass manufacturers.

Submissions by the solar glass maker before the DGTR said that this alleged dumping thwarted the efforts of Indian solar makers to compete with these ultra-low prices of imported solar glass. It pushed many Indian solar glass manufacturers to drastically lower their selling prices, hurting their balance sheets and ability to run a sustainable business. The DGTR, after their investigations found the allegations appropriate and recommended protectionist measures by the Indian government to safeguard the interests of the domestic industry.

Besides, Borosil Renewables, there are other solar glass manufacturers also in the country who were hit by the alleged dumping of solar glass into the Indian solar market. These included firms like Gobind Glass & Industries, Triveni Renewables, Vishakha Glass, and Gold Plus Float Glass.

Now, these companies are buoyed by two likely protections that can empower them to fight against a cheap import price war. The Indian government, during the Budget this year also announced a 10% Customs Duty against solar glass imports. Before that, there was zero customs duty against solar glass imports. The duty came into existence in November 2024.

However, before the imposition of this duty, Indian solar module manufacturers imported large quantities of cheap solar glass to reap the benefits of lower solar glass prices, the top management of Borosil Renewables recently told its investors in the latest investors call. This happened just months before the imposition of this duty-in September 2024.

“In the case of volumes, if I were to give you some examples, in 2023, and ’24, the average imports per day were about 2,000 to 2,100 tons per day. In July and August, it became 4,000 tons per day. And in September, it was 9,000 tons per day. So the imports actually have become very significantly high in September because of the impact of duty coming in or rather say, looking at the duty imposition of 10%, the importers have imported large volumes. Also, they have tried to take advantage of the fall in prices of glass. So there has been a lot of imports which has caused problems of carrying high inventories,” Ashok Jain, Whole-Time Director of Borosil Renewables told the investors. Of course, rising module manufacturing capacities domestically have also played a role.

How anti-dumping duty works 

The imposition of anti-dumping duty against the imports of solar glass is likely to create level playing fields for domestic solar glass makers. In an anti-dumping duty regime, a reference limit (minimum limit) is fixed by the government. In case, the imports are below the reference point, the foreign players need to pay the gap as a duty to ensure no such items come below this price threshold.

In case, such anti-dumping duties are imposed, the flow of dumped ultra-low prices solar glass cannot make an easy way to the Indian market. The move is likely to benefit all the solar glass makers in India who are seeking to flourish in India with the rise of production of solar modules in the country but were feeling throttled by the intrusion of Chinese and Vietnamese cheap solar glasses.

Borosil Renewables To Benefit Most

According to the documents submitted before the DGTR, Borosil Renewables has a lion’s share in the Indian solar glass makers, taking around around 72% domestically. The firm is optimistic about the imposition of anti-dumping duties from Q4 of the current financial year.
“The magnitude of the drop in selling prices by the Chinese makes it appear that imposition of anti-dumping duty on dump imports is the most obvious way for the domestic solar glass production to come back to a reasonable level of profitability,” the company said.

The company also hinted that the notification of the anti-dumping duty can also encourage the firm for further expansion. “The anti-dumping duty notification is yet to be issued by the Ministry of Finance, as I mentioned. So it’s a custom notification where you are charging the duty, it is issued by the Ministry of Finance, which normally takes 4 weeks to 8 weeks’ time. So once that is done — suppose the notification gets issued at the end of December or middle of December, we will review the situation in the fourth quarter of this financial year, January to March,” Jain added.

“And once the Board decides that this is the right time to go for expansion and we tie up funds or say, we decide on the funding mechanism, then we will be able to move ahead in the matter. From the time we decide that we want to go into the capex, it will take at least 18 months to start production,” he added.

The company in the latest quarter (Q2) reported losses, blaming them on lower selling prices to fight the price war with the imported solar glass industry. The firm, however, benefited from its export market which has also increased in size.