Electic bikes from China

[Emanuel Berg]

The EU will impose duties (27.5-83.6%) on
electric bikes from China, starting Thursday.

https://www.svt.se/svttext/tv/pages/133.html

--
underground experts united
http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573

[Tosspot]

On 2018-07-18 20:04, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> The EU will impose duties (27.5-83.6%) on
> electric bikes from China, starting Thursday.
>
> https://www.svt.se/svttext/tv/pages/133.html

For those not familiar with Scandawegian

https://www.ft.com/content/c27c4aa6-8a9c-11e8-bf9e-8771d5404543

[Frank Krygowski]

Looks like a paywall.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[AMuzi]

US increased duties on those last week (2 weeks ago?) and
both rates have been covered in general business news,
besides cycling specific organs.

These actions were not unprovoked
https://money.cnn.com/2017/10/02/technology/china-e-bikes-europe/index.html

The Powers That Be in China (Winnie the Pooh) see electric
bicycles as gateway technology to batteries, controllers,
motors etc for cars & trucks, part of 'Made in China 2025'.

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-2025-20180424-story.html

Not only electric bicycles of course, hence:
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/politics/trump-launches-new-tariffs-on-china

One might dislike fat, loud people with odd hair, but he
does have a point.


--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

[Frank Krygowski]

On 7/18/2018 8:24 PM, AMuzi wrote:
>
>
> One might dislike fat, loud people with odd hair, but he does have a point.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

But that doesn't mean anyone should vote for that squirrel.

--
- Frank Krygowski

[jbeattie]

Who says he got it right? A trade war will crush certain US businesses and drive-up the price of foreign and domestically produced consumer goods. Right is matter of whether you're a winner or loser, and there will be huge losers.

I'll admit, though, he is good at using platform planks as revenue generators to cover the massive budget gap created by the corporate tax break -- or to provide windfalls to his favorite persons and industries, including the conjoined twins of steel and coal. His tax code revisions are practically written for real estate investors and developers.

His negotiating style -- which generally involves an opening gambit resulting in absolute chaos, like the opening scenes of a Shakespeare comedy, presumes that we should and can gut-it-out until victory ensues. He assumes that everyone has the financial reserves to withstand the buffeting. Most don't. His base will be hardest hit, or at least that portion of his base that aren't real estate investors. When WalMart prices soar, so will Mitt Romney.

-- Jay Beattie.

[moa...@zoho.com]

> The EU will impose duties (27.5-83.6%) on

How does it work with the percentage and all?

Who decides if its 27.5 or 83.6?

And 27.5% on what? If the Chinese ship say 100 bikes, what is the value of that, and how is calculated? Do they have a bike expert on the border who says "these bikes are worth a bunch on money?" No?

[John B. Slocomb]

Usually, customs are calculated on cost, insurance, freight. I'm not
sure how the Customs calculates the cost but in our case (petrolium
exploration and production equipment) we furnished statements from the
manufacturer as to the costs. Insurance and freight are of course
taken from the shipping documents.
--

Cheers,

John B.

[Andre Jute]

On Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at 8:04:27 PM UTC+1, Emanuel Berg wrote:
> The EU will impose duties (27.5-83.6%) on
> electric bikes from China, starting Thursday.
>
> https://www.svt.se/svttext/tv/pages/133.html

English report here, thanks to Tosspot:
https://www.ft.com/content/c27c4aa6-8a9c-11e8-bf9e-8771d5404543

These punitive import duties are not new. They've stood for a long time as "anti-dumping duties". I assume they will now be stringently applied, where previously they were honored in their absence. I've in fact written about these "new" duties a few years ago either here or on another forum, warning people that if the customs officer inspecting their parcel from China feels dyspeptic he could double the price and then some with import duties plus punitive anti-dumping duties, with the punitive duties being imposed on the total of the agreed value (a dangerous concept when dealing with the Excise), the transport cost, the import duty, the brokerage, and the value added tax (for Americans, sales tax), all of which easily reaches 300%. Customs officers have a wide discretion about the import duties as well, especially if the electric bike or kit is imported by a private person, on which they can overlook the duties on imports from certain countries if they're below a set figure which differs for various classes of items. People who've imported on motor have until now had the benefit of this discretion and then some.

As for the question elsewhere in this thread about how the value is decided, generally speaking invoices will do. But in the case of China, where the numbers written on export documents are from dreamland, and distorted by state subsidies to create what Western marketers call "loss leaders", the "Japanese model" applies. This involves the customs officer hefting the duty on a price he decides would be the wholesale price if the item, in this case an electric bicycle, was produced locally; the Japanese, with their very high materials cost and stiff labour costs too compared to their near neighbors, use such methods to keep out imports from undesirables (gaijin, a very useful weasel-sword), meaning China, the US and the EU.

It might be added that in addition, Germany, which through financial dominance rules the EU to a far greater extent than Heinz Guderian's tanks could achieve, has an electric-bike industry of its own to protect, not least its technological superiority. The Bosch-Panasonic motors are, for instance, the only ones with a commercially viable torque sensor and reaction software.

Andre Jute
Good golly, my education wasn't wasted!

[Tosspot]

That's weird, not for me. Anyhow, precis;

The EU has imposed tariffs on imports of Chinese electric bicycles, in
an effort to shield the bloc’s manufacturers against dumping at a time
of rising trade tensions around the globe.

Brussels decided to impose provisional anti-dumping duties of between
21.8 per cent and 83.6 per cent on inbound shipments of e-bikes from
China, without which it said a further deterioration of the industry’s
economic and financial situation was “very likely”.

Regulators found evidence of dumping — selling a product below home
market prices — as a result of which the region’s e-bike producers
suffered “material injury”.

[Radey Shouman]

You assume most of the US is like you, who actually have substantial, if
not unlimited, financial reserves. But much of the country lives
paycheck to paycheck, with a net worth oscillating around zero. Anyone
who can motivate a large number of these people to the polls can win,
as both Obama and Trump have shown. God only knows how the next one
will be.


--

[AMuzi]

I did not say he was right, I said he has a point.
As do the Europeans on this specific issue.

One might posit that there are other perhaps better paths.
For example if France would get the State's foot off the
neck of employers for a moment they might hire someone new,
or even young, one being better than the current zero. And
I'm not sure DJT is completely wrong either although I
suspect he's not right (both in principle and in effect).
Check out recent Chinese economic data and their currency
slip this summer. Another way to gauge policy effectiveness
seems to indicate both Persia and China are not doing all
that well at the moment:

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iran/20180719.aspx

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/inking-07162018103924.html

widespread copycats deface party leaders and party slogan
posters, Winnie The Pooh hasn't had his picture on page one
in the newspapers (very unusual, normally every single day),
party official leader posters and party slogan posters
removed suddenly. Something is up.

Both countries are not Nicaragua or Venezuela, there being
little drama in a perfectly predictable slo-mo train wreck.

OTOH as Yogi Berra wisely taught us, predictions are hard,
especially about the future.