Italian industry against duties on Chinese solar products

"In this scenario, it's difficult to see how the European Commission's decision would protect the European PV industry. On the contrary, I foresee a loss of jobs and factories," Cremona added.

The duties against Chinese solar panels also came at a bad timing, when the European solar industry is in a delicate situation, he said. In Italy, the authorities have closed the "Conto Energia" subsidy initiative which has been supporting the solar market.

Despite the Italian government voting in favor of the European Commission's decision to impose duties on Chinese solar products, Cremona said his association was strongly against it.

"Even if Chinese products are penalized by duties, we have to be careful about the real costs of the duties to the EU," he said.

He took monowafer, one of the key components of solar panels, as an example where EU would suffer a lot from the punitive duties on China.

As the EU only has few producers of monowafers and has to import this key component mainly from China, the duties on Chinese monowafers would increase the production cost for the EU solar panel producers who would in turn raise prices of their products, he said.

As China and the European Commission is still in the process of negotiating a solution to the trade dispute, the Italian business leader said that, "I hope we will find a fair agreement which doesn't damage China and Europe."