The devaluation of the Chinese yuan is of no big help, says the Indian solar power industry. This is because the rupee has depreciated against the dollar too.

Netting the rupee depreciation versus the dollar against yuan versus the dollar, there is no help at all, says Sunil Jain, CEO and Executive Director, Hero Future Energies Ltd, a leading renewable energy company and part of the Hero group.

“No help, no harm,” was how Sumant Sinha, Founder-Chairman and CEO of ReNew Power Ventures, another wind and solar energy company.

Nor is the wind industry enthused. Madhusudhan Khemka, Chairman of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers’ Association, also said that the rupee’s and yuan’s depreciation against the dollar cancelled out each other, and hence no big benefit for those who import wind turbine components from China.

The Chinese currency has been devalued three times in the last few days and has touched about 6.59 to the US dollar, its weakest since August 2011. China has come in for criticism from all over the world for unfairly supporting its exporters.

India is a large importer of solar cells and modules from China. In 2014-15, India imported cells and modules worth $ 606.92 million from China, which was 72 per cent of India’s total imports of the commodities. In the previous year, Indian imports from China were $596.72 million, 84 per cent of all imports of cells and modules.

In the first two months of the current year, the imports were to the tune of $176.65 million, or 21 per cent of cells and module imports from China in the full year 2014-15.

India has an active trade with China, though the trade is majorly skewed in favour of China.

 

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