European glass fiber producers have filed a complaint to the European Commission against Chinese glass fiber manufacturers based in Egypt, Euro News reports, citing two sources it says are familiar with the matter. The complaint argues Chinese companies have been benefiting from unfair subsidies, allowing them to bypass anti-dumping duties. EU producers are hoping for at least 25% of anti-dumping tariffs to be slapped on glass fibers coming from Egypt.

In detail: The firms in question are being accused of setting up firms in an economic zone “that amounts to an extension of the Chinese territory abroad, enabling them to circumvent the anti-dumping measures taken in 2014 against companies established in China,” Glass Fibre Europe’s secretary-general Cedric Janssens told Euro News.

What’s next? The EU is expected to make a decision on whether to initiate investigation within 45 days of the complaint’s submission.

This isn’t the first time the Commission has acted against Egypt-based Chinese firms, with the body previously imposing a 13.1% anti-subsidy duty against imports coming from Chinese firms based in Egypt in 2020, with the European Court of Justice confirming the decision last year in a decision that recognized cross-border subsidies as equivalent to subsidies as defined under EU law.

Glass fibre manufacturers on the other side of the Mediterranean are hoping that this will be increased to 25%, as the existing “13.1 anti-subsidy duty is not enough to stop the flow of imports” that are flooding the market, according to Glass Fibre Europe’s legal representative Laurent Ruessmann.

Egypt has a glass fibre capacity of 400k tons despite having no real local demand, Janssens alleges, which is nearly half of the EU’s 1 mn ton market demand for the material.

Other Egyptian firms have also been in the European Commission’s crosshairs, having recently initiated an anti-dumping investigation in August into hot-rolled flat products of iron, non-alloy, or other alloy steel imports from Egypt, India, Japan, and Vietnam — with Ezz Steel among the companies being investigated.

What does this mean to Egypt? China has been a dominant force in Egypt's industrial development, with the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone) leading the charge. The zone has received major investments from Chinese glass manufacturing investments over the last few years including a Jushi Group USD 320 mn production line for fiberglass and an under-construction USD 300 mn production facility for flat and PV glass. The anti-dumping measures may impact existing and planned glass making facilities in these zones, undermining their access to European markets.

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