In 2021, around 5.7 million fibre kilometres of optical cables found its way into the UK market, which compromised a domestic sector that was not only thriving, but poised for future growth. 

UK-produced fibre made up only around half of domestic consumption, the other half was supplied through imports from China, India, the US, Poland and Germany.  

The economic implications of this were significant. While more cost effective than legacy copper lines, the optic cables still incurred substantial expenses when deployed at large scale.

As a result, the UK government has accepted recommendations for measures from the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) in response to concerns about unfair trading practices. 

The new measures will mean imports of optical fibre cables will now encounter stringent anti-dumping and countervailing measures. This was after the TRA found this product was being dumped in the UK at prices below what they would sell for in their home country. 

This would lead to price undercutting from foreign actors, causing the domestic industry to have a reduced market share, sales volume, profitability and investment. 

The new measures include anti-dumping duties ranging from 23% to 46.2%, and countervailing duties rates spanning from 10.62% to 11.79%. However, it was important to note that not all government subsidies were countervailable, meaning not all could be countered using these trade remedies.

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In the UK, they are playing a pivotal role in delivering gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband ISP networks to homes. The government’s current goal is to make this available to 85% of the UK by 2025, and nationwide by 2030. 

The backdrop to these new protective measures was a complaint by Prysmian Cables & Systems Limited. This complaint prompted the initiation of two investigations into the import of single-mode optical fibre cables. 

The first investigation, denoted as AD0021, focused on anti-dumping measures, aiming to understand whether the imported products were being sold in the UK at prices below their home country’s market value. The second investigation, labelled AS0022, looked into anti-subsidy measures, investigating whether the imports entering the UK market benefited from subsidies that artificially reduced their production costs.