On July 5, SAIC released a news release saying that in order to effectively safeguard its legitimate rights and interests and the interests of global customers, it will formally request the European Commission to hold a hearing on China’s temporary countervailing duty measures on electric vehicles, and further exercise its right of defense in accordance with the law.
On June 12, the EU announced plans to impose temporary tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and issued a preliminary ruling information pre-disclosure, in which the subsidy rate of SAIC was calculated to be 38.1%. on July 4, the European Commission formally announced the results of the preliminary ruling, and SAIC was levied a slight reduction in the rate of duty to 37.6%, which is still one of the highest enterprises in the countervailing duty enterprises levied. Among the remaining enterprises, Geely was 19.9%, BYD was 17.4%; other car enterprises cooperating with the EU investigation had an average increase in tax rate of 20.8%, and those not cooperating with the investigation had an increase in tax rate of 37.6%.
In recent years, the foreign market has become a breakthrough weapon for SAIC. 2023, SAIC sold a total of 1.208 million cars overseas, leading Chinese car companies for eight consecutive years. Among them, independent brands accounted for 92%, and new energy vehicles accounted for 24%, realizing the double line of independent and new energy segments.
In terms of regional division, in 2023, SAIC will sell 330,000 vehicles in the European market. Among them, the European market has an inherent brand advantage of MG, more than 50% of overseas sales are in developed markets.
The EU’s temporary countervailing duty measures on Chinese EVs in this round will undoubtedly have a great impact on SAIC. For this reason, SAIC once again put forward a defense.
The content of the defense includes: the EC countervailing duty investigation involves commercially sensitive information, for example, the investigation requires the cooperation to provide the chemical formula related to the battery, which is beyond the normal scope of investigation. The EC’s determination of subsidies is erroneous, for example, the new energy vehicle purchase subsidy for domestic consumers is included in the calculation of the subsidy rate for sales in the EU. The EC ignored some of the information and defenses submitted by SAIC in the course of the investigation, and based on the so-called “non-cooperation with the investigation” under Article 28 of the Basic Countervailing Regulation, it made an unfavorable presumption and inflated the subsidy rates of a number of items.