China may face up to a 70 per cent tariff on aluminium windows and doors exports to Australia, as the federal government cracks down on the product being “dumped” here.
The Australian Trade Remedies Commission (ATRC) has made a preliminary finding that Chinese manufacturers are receiving unfair government subsidies when producing aluminium windows and doors.
Initial reports found goods were sold with a dumping margin of somewhere between 5.3 to 70.4 per cent of their fair price.
Discrepancies varied depending on which Chinese company was importing aluminium to Australia.
ATRC also found some Chinese exporters were being given modest subsidies from various levels of the Chinese government.
These include cheaper energy for aluminium manufacturing and cheaper rates from state-controlled banks.
The preliminary report found local manufacturers’ sales volumes fell by about 19 per cent from July 2021 through to June 2025.
Over the same four-year period, the value of their sales dropped about 14 per cent from a peak in the 2023 financial year, according to the report.
“The commissioner has preliminarily found that during the investigation period, the goods exported to Australia by certain exporters from China were dumped and subsidised,” the report said.
“The commissioner has also found that the dumped and subsidised goods have caused material injury to the Australian industry producing like goods.”
A final recommendation will be sent to Industry and Innovation Minister Tim Ayres no later than December 16, 2026.
This extended timeline allows for further consultation and analysis before any permanent measures are implemented.
This comes after the Albanese government recently announced $4.7bn in taxpayer funding to support aluminium smelters across the country.
Sites in Tasmania, Queensland and NSW have struggled to stay competitive compared with cheaper overseas options.
Aluminium is about a $2.8bn industry in Australia, employs 9000 people directly and another 170,000 indirectly.
The Australian aluminium industry lost $422.6m over the investigation period – $350m due to undercutting by dumped or subsided products as well as a further $72.6m in forgone sales.
“The commission found that the scale and extent of project losses reflected a sustained displacement of Australian production opportunities by dumped and subsidised imports,” the report said.
“The commission also found that persistent price undercutting by imports from China suppressed the Australian industry’s ability to recover increasing costs and achieve sustainable pricing outcomes.”
The commissioner proposed seven different tariff penalties for the seven Chinese producers that co-operated with the review based on the size and scale of the dumping.
The smallest was 5.3 per cent for Foshan AMJ, while the largest was 51.6 per cent for Zhuhai Yipeng.
Other affected producers include Guangdong Kete, Broad and Yuanjiang.
Uncooperative and all other exporters could face a 70.4 per cent duty.
Altop was also investigated but there were no allegations of wrongdoing because it did not send the dumped aluminium to Australia during the four year investigation period.
Chinese-made aluminium windows and doors face no tariffs under the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement.
The inquiry was highly controversial, with more than 500 submissions in the field.