Speaking about the US move, Zhang Guobao, minister for China’s National Energy Bureau (NEB) said: "Compared with the United Steelworkers (USW) petition last October, most of the reasons were deleted, because they know they [the USW complaints] are groundless."
Zhang’s comments come after USTR Ron Kirk made a complaint to the WTO on December 22, alleging China is providing multi-million-dollar grants to companies that are only using Chinese parts. This is a violation of WTO rules.
"The US government’s move is a gesture to the domestic public opinion. Speaking of subsidies to new energy companies, the US government has extended much more subsidies than us," said Zhang.
Zhang added that official statistics show in the first nine months of 2010, the US government had supplied $4.6 billion subsidies to US energy companies. Out of this, US wind power companies received $3 billion.
See the upcoming February issue of Windpower Monthly for more
