Time to ask Sai Mizzi’s husband about those amazing Chinese solar panel job creation plans again
Published:
November 7, 2013 at 12:16am
Suntech, once China’s dominant solar panel manufacturer, has gone dramatically bust, its problems triggered by a general collapse in the price of panels.
But we are going to start assembling them for Chinese companies, of course, and from parts made in China because actually making them here would be too expensive compared to China’s slave wages.
Read this Reuters report.
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http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/reuters/businessNews/~3/pQ8ArZtV2uI/story01.htm
It would also be cheaper for China to assemble the solar panels there, and to ship them in bulk to Malta, than having the panels assembled in Malta using local labour at local wage rates.
The big question is why should China be doing that. The Maltese market for solar panels is very limited and cannot sustain even an assembly unit based in Malta for more than a few weeks. If the panels are to be re-exported from Malta, direct shipment to final destination would make more economic sense.
We are back to the brass plumbing fittings, lard-like chocolate bars, and textiles that could not be used for anything, that characterized the Mintoff/China local manufacturing deal back in the 70s.
China is simply buying influence in Malta, and so within the EU central structures. The constant reference to the use of veto on unrelated issues that Joseph Muscat keeps harping on goes beyond irregular migration matters.
Buying influence was China’s plan all along. To China, Malta is not a market. It’s a tool.
There is a logic. If the China assembled product undergoes sufficient change in value by doing some production operations in Malta, then these products will get the CE mark. Therefore, these products would be eligible to free movement within the EU and NOT subject to duties, import taxes and anti-dumping regulations. The irony is that the PN administration had negotiated these deals back in the late 1980s early 1990s.
The market for these products is not Malta – it’s Europe. And, I will bet you anything that the MLP government will arrange building regulations in such a way as to favour the Malta produced product.
On a related note, there is a significant catch to the new fixed tariffs: I can bet you anything that the fixed prices are entirely subsidised rather than reflecting improved procurement and production/distribution efficiencies. (HAve the PN said anything to the effect rather than welcome the change?)
It’s not the change in value which is relevant here. It is whether the imported parts are sufficiently “transformed” when assembled – which they probably won’t be as the rules for determining the origin of a product are normally pretty strict.
Additionally, there will be duty to pay on the parts when these are imported into Malta from China. This idea of assembling solar panels in Malta does not make sense.
Don’t the LP read the papers (or are their literacy problems that bad)?
A number of Chinese solar panel manufacturers are in trouble – here’s an article in the Economist from March that discusses Suntech’s default back then and talks briefly about debt in China’s solar panel industry.
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21574534-troubling-bankruptcy-troubled-business-sunset-suntech
timesofmalta.com reported the new electricity tariffs without mentioning whether or not the Eco reduction is going to be retained or not.
At present we already have a 25% reduction on the first 1000 units followed by a 15% reduction for higher usage up to 1750 units per person per year. If this is not retained than the deductions mentioned today are meaningless and will only fuel waste of electricity.
I remember that Konrad Mizzi prior to the election said that the Eco reduction would be retained but I couldn’t find anything in the news report today.
Sir, you seem to have cracked Konrad Mizzi’s fine print.
I bet it will be another Chinese “fabrika tar-rattan”.
Jew dik il-famuza FABBRIKA TAL-ELF
We already have a ‘fabbrika tal-elf’ – PL has been producing elves en masse to take over social media and comments boards.
Is this venture similar to Mintoff’s factory “tal-limi”?
The Maltese media have completely ignored this news and, more importantly, its implications for Malta.
I’m wondering if the Maltese who will work for these Chinese will get the same treatment as reported here http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/06/world/asia/china-labor-camp-halloween-sos/index.html?hpt=hp_c1 …. and to think that we’re getting them to manage Enemalta as well.
I hope that this will not be a repetition of the failed attempt to manufacture Chinese carpets in Malta.
Maybe, when China delves further into capitalism, the real one that is, not its piloted monopolistic attempts, the real problems will become evident.
When everything is improvised and its internal market a joke, these won’t be manageable.
Now that technology’s showing how products can be made at home and still remain accessible to all, China’s in deep trouble.
They’re in an industrial rut, following the other gargantuan failure, convince the millions to displace themselves to what have become ghost cities.
So basically they can’t convince the population to go to their ‘cities’, nor will these acquire the ‘planned wealth’ awaiting. No market, no human resources available to man their planned factories, buy in their malls, nothing.
That’s what happens when plans and agreements are made far in advance. 2010 is very long ago in this day and age.
Muscat’s propensity to rest on his laurels and delegate everything to chance will be his undoing.
Even because Muscat’s Malta has to scramble to compete with Cameron’s Britain doing something similar.
And now that Suntech’s gone, Merkel doesn’t have to worry about protecting Germany’s domestic industries, something she was reluctant to do until a month ago.
Throw in France and Japan doing their bit to disrupt China’s inroads into European energy, they’ve just signed a nuclear agreement with Turkey, and the mix becomes critical.
More fool Britain. And Malta.
Time to choose, the EU or out. Guess what Cameron said.
Malta is China’s passport to the EU.
Shiv Nair is Muscat’s passport to China.