Excavator producers are set to benefit from swingeing anti-dumping measures designed to crack down on cheap Chinese imports.
UK manufacturer of heavy plant equipment JCB said the announcement by the government’s international trade regulator would level a “distorted” market.
Under proposals being considered by the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), Chinese excavator producers could be hit by a new duty of up to 83.5 per cent when they attempt to export their goods to the UK.
The TRA said it could benefit UK firms by up to £3.4m a year.
An investigation by the authority, launched in response to an application from JCB, found that the price of excavators in the UK was being undercut by cheaper imports at a rate of 23.39 per cent.
Chinese producers were able to exploit reduced production costs to bring their prices below those of UK competitors, which did not benefit from an “artificially low” cost base, the regulator said.
The punitive new measure would apply to imported excavators from China weighing between 11 and 80 tonnes.
A proposed duty range of 33.03 to 83.5 per cent could be levied on imports.
Oliver Griffiths, chief executive of the authority, said excavator production was an important component of the UK’s advanced manufacturing sector.
“Our provisional finding is that UK producers are being undercut significantly by dumped imports from China,” he said.
During the two-year investigation, which began in July 2022, excavator producers in the UK had a combined turnover of around £500m and employed 900 workers, the authority said.
Around 180,000 tonnes of excavators were sold in the UK during that time, with between a tenth and a quarter of those supplied by domestic producers – a reduction of 11 per cent in market share despite increased consumption.
JCB chief executive Graeme Macdonald welcomed TRA’s outcome. “The TRA finding that Chinese exporters of excavators are using unfair practices to price their exports below their UK competitors comes as no surprise to us,” he said.
“The evidence has been out there in our home market for quite some time. As a result, the TRA’s proposal for a new anti-dumping measure in response to this anti-competitive behaviour is an important first step in levelling the playing field in the UK, which has been distorted for far too long by Chinese exporters.”
Interested parties have until 16 December to comment on the proposals.
Macdonald said: “We await the TRA’s final determination and hope this matter reaches its conclusion sooner rather than later.”
