The government has today adopted new measures, as recommended by the Trade Remedies Authority(TRA), to protect the UK’s growing optical fibre cables industry – worth around £88m to the economy – from unfair trading practices from China. As a result, imports will now face new anti-dumping and countervailing measures.

Fibre optic cables transmit data using light and come in all sorts of different sizes and designs. Some are used in the UK to help bring gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP networks closer to homes, while others are used for core network connectivity, subsea links or high-capacity Ethernet connections (leased lines) for businesses and backhaul etc.

NOTE: c.5.7 million fibre kilometres of optical fibre cable was sold in the UK in 2021, including UK producer sales and imported goods, and the domestic market is expected to grow. UK-produced fibre accounts for around half of all UK consumption, with the rest supplied by imports.

The cables themselves are fairly cheap, at least when compared with legacy copper lines, but they still attract a fair cost when deployed at scale – something a lot of networks operators are currently doing. Such cables can be purchased from various UK and European suppliers (e.g. Emtelle, Hexatronic, Prysmian etc.), but they can also be imported from China, India, the US, Poland and Germany.

In 2022 we revealed that a complaint by Prysmian Cables & Systems Limited had prompted the TRA to open two investigations into imports of single-mode optical fibre cables from China. The first (AD0021) was an anti-dumping investigation to determine whether imports of these products are being dumped in the UK at prices below what they would sell for in their home country.

The second (AS0022) was an anti-subsidy investigation to determine whether the Chinese imports entering the UK market are also benefiting from subsidies which lower their production costs. The TRA ultimately found (here) that such imports and dumping were already causing “damage to the UK industry” and revealed “clear evidence of price undercutting”, but they left the final decision up to the government.

The government has today formally moved to “protect the UK industry” by introducing new “trade remedy measures“, such as new anti-dumping duties that range from 23% to 46.2%, and the new countervailing dutiesrates range from 10.62% and 11.79%. But it’s worth noting that not all government subsidies are countervailable (can be countered using trade remedies).

Source: ISP Review