(Yicai Global) June 14 -- The temporary detention of a senior executive of a Chinese photovoltaic company by German police has no significant impact on the industry, according to Chinese business people attending the Intersolar Europe expo in Munich.

The incident has nothing to do with geopolitics and does not affect the business of major Chinese PV companies in Germany, senior industry professionals told Yicai Global. What happened has no impact on first-tier PV firms nor causes the least change in German policy and demand, an official from a leading solar panel maker added.

On June 12, a senior executive of a Chinese PV company was arrested after the prosecutor's office in Augsburg issued a pre-trial detention order, the German police confirmed to Yicai Global yesterday. The executive was brought before a district court judge at 2 p.m. on the same day and given conditional release, the police said.

No big companies were involved in the incident, which, contrary to rumors, has nothing to do with Europe's anti-dumping and countervailing duties imposed on China's PV industry because they ended in 2018, Lv Jinbiao, deputy director of the committee of experts at the silicon industry branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Association, said yesterday.

Jiangsu Green Power New Energy confirmed that the executive was from the company and was taken away to assist with an investigation, it announced yesterday. The person will attend Intersolar Europe as planned, the Changzhou-based firm added.

Intersolar Europe is a world-leading solar industry exhibition, according to its website. Manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, service providers as well as project planners and developers gather in Munich every year to discuss the latest trends in the industry, see innovations first hand, and meet potential clients.

The China Photovoltaic Industry Association also confirmed on its WeChat account yesterday that only one person was taken away for investigation and later went on to a hotel in Munich. Reports of several executives of Chinese PV firms being involved were incorrect, it pointed out.

The executive in question is taking legal advice about solutions, according to a PV industry source attending the expo. The case will be settled easily if the person was indeed only taken away to verify some issues from the past, another insider noted.

The arrest was also perhaps related to some small companies that sold products at low prices and made dual contracts against the price commitment or resorted to Southeast Asia for export qualifications, another person in the industry told Yicai Global.

Germany’s demand for solar energy equipment is still robust, with the country having an installed capacity of 70 gigawatts, while newly installed capacity jumped 69 percent to 2.7 GW in the first quarter from a year earlier, data from its energy supply regulator Federal Network Agency showed.

The German PV market is growing rapidly and domestic firms cannot meet the demand, Beijing-based investment bank Minsheng Securities pointed out. Along with the nation's disadvantages in electricity and labor costs, it would be difficult for Germany to reduce its industry chain's dependence on China in the short term, it added.

Germany has become China's second-largest export market for solar inverters, behind the Netherlands, data from China's General Administration of Customs showed. PV inverter exports to Germany soared 364 percent to CNY687 million (USD95.9 million) in April from a year earlier.

Editor: Martin Kadiev