21st Century Business Herald Reporter Zhang Xu Beijing Report
Starting from April 1, a series of new regulations will officially take effect, among which the adjustment of export tax rebates for products such as photovoltaics and batteries has attracted significant attention.
In January of this year, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation jointly issued an announcement. Starting from April 1, 2026, the value-added tax export rebate for products like photovoltaics will be officially canceled. The rebate for battery products will be adjusted in two phases: from April 1 to December 31, 2026, the rebate rate will be reduced from 9% to 6%, and from January 1, 2027, it will be completely canceled.
This is not the first adjustment of export tax rebates for these two major industries. On November 15, 2024, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation had already lowered the export rebate rates for certain refined oil products, photovoltaics, batteries, and some non-metallic mineral products from 13% to 9%. With this latest adjustment of the export tax rebate policy, the era of export tax subsidies for China's photovoltaic and battery industries will officially come to an end.
(Data Picture)
Zhou Mi, a researcher at the Ministry of Commerce Research Institute, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that in the early stages of industrial development, reducing tax burdens through export tax rebates is a common international practice. Once enterprises have formed sufficient competitiveness and reached a certain scale, their competitive advantage no longer solely depends on price or a few tax point differences. &#34;Currently, the new energy-related industries have formed strong competitiveness, and it is necessary to timely adjust relevant policies to adapt to the new situation of industrial development, technological advancement, and international competition.&#34;
Export tax rebates refer to a system that exempts and refunds the value-added tax and consumption tax levied on exported goods in the domestic link. This system complies with WTO rules and is a common practice internationally. For a long time, China has implemented export tax rebate policies for most products and has made timely adjustments in line with the needs of economic and social development.
Photovoltaic and battery products have become iconic products for China in the field of green trade. According to data from the General Administration of Customs, by 2025, the export scale of China's &#34;new three items&#34; products, including electric vehicles, photovoltaic products, and lithium batteries, is expected to approach 1.3 trillion yuan, a 3.5-fold increase compared to 2020.
Specifically, in the photovoltaic industry, data from the China Photovoltaic Industry Association shows that by 2025, China's shares of global production capacity for polysilicon, silicon wafers, batteries, and modules will be 96.0%, 96.2%, 91.3%, and 80.1%, respectively, dominating the global photovoltaic industry chain.
However, in recent years, the photovoltaic industry has shown a trend of &#34;increased volume and decreased price,&#34; with the export price of photovoltaic modules dropping by more than 60% compared to early 2023. In the first ten months of 2025, China's export volumes of silicon wafers, battery cells, and modules increased by 8.3%, 91.4%, and 6% year-on-year, respectively, but the total export value of photovoltaic products decreased by 13.2% year-on-year.
The China Photovoltaic Industry Association mentioned in its interpretation of the new export tax rebate regulations that since 2024, China's photovoltaic products have faced increasingly fierce vicious competition in overseas markets, leading to a continuous decline in export prices. Some enterprises, during the export process, not only engaged in low-price competition but also converted the export tax rebate amount into bargaining space for foreign negotiations, resulting in fiscal funds originally used to offset domestic value-added tax burdens being ceded to foreign purchasers during the bargaining process, which not only caused profit losses for domestic enterprises but also increased the risk of trade friction
The China Photovoltaic Industry Association believes that timely reducing or canceling the export tax rebate for photovoltaic products will help promote a rational return of prices in foreign markets and reduce the probability of trade frictions.
Regarding the significance of this adjustment in the tax rebate policy, Li Xianzhong, Director-General of the Comprehensive Department of the Ministry of Finance, stated at a press conference held by the State Council Information Office on January 20 that China’s economy and society have now entered a stage of accelerated green and low-carbon high-quality development. The adjustment of the export tax rebate policy is conducive to promoting the efficient use of resources, reducing environmental pollution and carbon emissions, and driving a comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development. At the same time, it is also beneficial for guiding reasonable adjustments in industrial structure, promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, comprehensively rectifying &#34;involutionary&#34; competition, and promoting high-quality economic development.
After the policy signal was released, leading manufacturers such as LONGi Green Energy and JA Solar have raised module prices. The latest price analysis report on the photovoltaic industry chain from consulting firm InfoLink Consulting shows that, influenced by expectations of the export tax rebate policy, prices of photovoltaic modules have risen in several regions.
According to calculations by Shanghai Nonferrous Metals Network, taking the 210R module as an example, the cancellation of the value-added tax export rebate will reduce the profit per module exported by 46 to 51 yuan. This means that after the policy takes effect in April, if companies do not adjust prices in a timely manner, their profit margins will be compressed.
As one of the &#34;new three items&#34; alongside photovoltaic products, battery products are in a similar situation.
Data released by the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance shows that by 2025, the cumulative production of power and energy storage batteries in China will reach 1755.6 GWh, with a year-on-year growth of 60.1%. Dongxing Securities predicts that the capacity utilization rate will be about 66%, and there will be a slight decline in 2026 as new capacity is released.
At the same time, the prices of energy storage batteries are also continuously decreasing. Some companies are adopting a &#34;low price + long-term funding&#34; strategy to seize overseas orders, leading to &#34;more exports, more losses.&#34; At the 2025 World Energy Storage Conference, Zeng Yuqun, founder and chairman of CATL, stated that price competition in the energy storage industry is exceptionally fierce, with prices of energy storage systems dropping by about 80% over the past three years.
CITIC Securities research report points out that for China's advantageous industries, lowering the export tax rebate rate will help enhance the profitability of export products.
Some analysts believe that canceling the export tax rebate for advantageous industries will help allocate fiscal resources more efficiently, directing fiscal funds to key development points and urgent needs of the public, allowing fiscal funds to exert greater effectiveness.
In recent years, China's photovoltaic and battery industries have achieved leapfrog development in scale, technology, and application, but the matching degree of supply and demand needs to be improved, and &#34;involutionary&#34; competition still needs to be addressed.
In January of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, the State Administration for Market Regulation, and the National Energy Administration jointly convened 16 power and energy storage battery companies, with the meeting focusing on optimizing capacity planning and regulating the market. The meeting minutes clearly stated: optimize capacity planning, avoid the risk of overcapacity, and regulate market competition.
Unlike the complete cancellation of photovoltaic products on April 1, the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation are implementing a phased and gradual cancellation of the export tax rebate for batteries. This not only provides a buffer period but also helps companies focus on industrial upgrading and overseas layout
Zhu Keli, the founding director of the National Research Institute for New Economy, told reporters from the 21st Century Business Herald that in the short term, the adjustment of export tax rebates will bring temporary cost pressures and a market adaptation period for the industry; in the long term, this policy adjustment is a key lever to promote the stable and long-term development of China's new energy industry and to achieve a transformation from large to strong, which is of great positive significance for the long-term healthy development of the industry.
In Zhu Keli's view, the internal differentiation within the industry will become more pronounced. Leading enterprises with core technologies, scale advantages, and stable overseas channels will have stronger cost digestion and risk resistance capabilities, while companies relying on low prices for volume will face significantly increased operational pressure, accelerating the pace of survival of the fittest in the industry.
In response to the opportunities and challenges brought by policy adjustments, leading enterprises have put forward countermeasures. On January 14, the secretary of the board of directors of CATL stated in response to investor questions that the introduction of relevant policies is beneficial for the long-term high-quality development of the industry. With strong global market demand, in the medium to long term, it is advantageous for leading enterprises with product technology and global layout advantages to &#34;go overseas&#34; with high quality.
A relevant person in charge of Xinwangda mentioned in an interview that in the short term, the company has formed a buffer through its global production capacity layout in Hungary, Thailand, Morocco, etc., and local production overseas can directly avoid the rise in related costs; in the medium to long term, the company has clearly stated that it will accelerate its in-depth global layout and increase R&amp;D investment in high-end products such as solid-state batteries, aiming to actively digest cost pressures by enhancing product added value and achieve a transformation from price competition to technology competition.
CITIC Securities' research report believes that in the long run, this adjustment of export tax rebates is conducive to accelerating the capacity clearing of domestic industries such as photovoltaics and promoting domestic related enterprises to develop towards high value-added product exports.
Zhu Keli stated that without the buffer of the tax rebate policy, enterprises will actively shift their resource focus towards high-end technology research and development, the creation of high value-added products, local capacity layout overseas, and the upgrading of value-added services, completely breaking away from the path dependence of low-end price competition. At the same time, this can effectively alleviate international trade frictions and promote China's new energy industry to upgrade from single product exports to integrated output of technology, standards, and brands. In the long term, the industry's profit structure will become more reasonable, the momentum for R&amp;D innovation will continue to strengthen, overall competitiveness and risk resistance capabilities will steadily improve, ultimately achieving high-quality and sustainable long-term development.
Zhou Mi further stated that the battery industry is still in the process of development and upgrading. Through gradual policy adjustments, the industry can be guided to focus on future trends such as solid-state batteries, reasonably set investment and development goals, and avoid blind capacity expansion. At the same time, such measures also help enterprises understand future global layouts, adjust relevant strategies, and achieve a more balanced allocation between domestic production, exports, and foreign investment, enhancing the stability of development. &#34;This is a concrete measure to promote orderly industrial development, adapt to the environment, achieve sustainable development, and expand the overall market pie,&#34; Zhou Mi said.
At the &#34;Photovoltaic Industry 2025 Development Review and 2026 Situation Outlook Seminar&#34; held in February this year, Liu Shijun, former deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, stated that although green industries such as photovoltaics face short-term supply and demand imbalances, from the perspective of achieving the &#34;dual carbon&#34; goals and global energy transition in the medium to long term, there is still broad space; the industry needs to maintain innovation vitality while promoting dynamic balance of supply and demand through the establishment of a new power system, improvement of carbon market mechanisms, and optimization of industrial governance
At the aforementioned seminar, Wang Bohua, an advisor to the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, stated that the photovoltaic industry is bidding farewell to export tax rebate benefits and entering a new stage driven by the market, with the competition model shifting from &#34;low-price internal competition&#34; to &#34;high-quality&#34; competition. In the short term, this may lead to growing pains in the industry, but in the long run, it will force technological innovation, optimize the competitive landscape, and promote the construction of a more sustainable competitive edge for China's photovoltaic industry in the global market. &#34;This should be an inevitable path for the photovoltaic industry to mature.&#34;

159566

159857

515790

The export tax rebate policy for photovoltaic batteries will be fully canceled starting April 1, 2026, and the tax rebate rate for battery products will be adjusted in two phases. This policy adjustment marks the end of the era of export tax subsidies for China's photovoltaic and battery industries. Experts point out that as the competitiveness of the new energy industry strengthens, it is necessary to adjust policies in a timely manner to adapt to the new situation. Photovoltaic and battery products have become iconic products of China's green trade, and it is expected that the export scale of related products will reach 1.3 trillion yuan by 2025

腾讯新闻 - 财经

E Fund CNI New Energy Battery ETF

Tianhong CSI Photovoltaic Industry ETF

Huatai-PB CSI Photovoltaic Industry ETF

CCB Principal Guozheng New Energy Vehicle Battery ETF

ChinaAMC ChiNext New Energy ETF

Guotai CSI Photovoltaic Industry ETF

GF CNI New Energy Vehicle Battery ETF

China Merchants CSI Battery Theme ETF

China Universal CSI Battery Theme ETF

Bocom Schroders CNI NEW ENERGY Index Fund(LOF)-A

China Southern CSI New Energy ETF

中证新能

Dacheng CSI Battery Thematic ETF

Huaan CSI Interior New Energy ETF

China Merchants CSI Photovoltaic Industry ETF

ChinaAMC CSI New Energy ETF

ChinaAMC CSI Photovoltaic Industry ETF

CNI New Energy

ChinaAMC CSI Battery Thematic ETF

Ping An CSI Photovoltaic Industry ETF

Wanjia CNI NEV Battery ETF

Tianhong ChiNext New Energy ETF

The export tax rebate for photovoltaic cells will come to an end, marking a turning point for industry development