China Chamber of Commerce for Import & Export of Machinery & Electronic Products (CCCME) has recently posted an article stating that based on the data from the General Administration of Customs of the PRC, solar wafer exports from China during the period from January to November 2021 came to US$3.54 billion in value.This figure reflects a year-on-year increase of 45.1%. Outside Mainland China, the top three markets for wafers from Chinese suppliers, in order, were Malaysia, Vietnam, and Taiwan for the 11-month period. Malaysia accounted for 18.9% (US$670 million) of the total export value for the period, whereas Vietnam and Taiwan accounted for 17.2% (US$610 million) and 14.3% (US$510 million) respectively.
CCCME pointed out that the value of monthly wafer exports to Taiwan reached a three-year high of US$70 million for last November. This figure reflects a month-over-month growth of 25% and a massive year-on-year growth of 131.8%. For that month, Taiwan rose to become the largest external market, thereby altering the long-standing situation of Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand being the top three.
In the middle of 2020, the US Department of Commerce received a petition for initiating an anti-circumvention investigation on certain Chinese PV product manufacturers. These manufacturers were accused of having set up factories in Southeast Asian countries to assemble PV modules with wafers, cells, and other components manufactured in China. In doing so, they were able to evade the existing tariff barriers that the US government has erected to limit Chinese imports. Even though the US Department of Commerce later dismissed the petition in November 2020, the petition did have the effect of slowing down Chinese wafer shipments to Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand. CCCME noted that since September last year, solar wafer exports to these three countries have been on a decline. To offset this loss of demand, Chinese wafer suppliers have also been ramping up shipments to Taiwan, South Korea, etc.