Türkiye Doubles Import Surveillance Reference Value on Photovoltaic Cells to USD 170/kg

Mechanism

The Imports General Directorate (İthalat Genel Müdürlüğü) under the Ministry of Trade operates a standing "gözetim" (surveillance) regime, established for photovoltaic cells under Tebliğ No: 2023/2 (Resmî Gazete Issue 32086, 27 January 2023), that layers unit-value-triggered licensing on top of Türkiye's ordinary MFN tariff schedule for GTİP 8541.42.00.00.00 (photovoltaic cells not assembled in modules or panels). The 17 July 2025 amendment raises the reference customs value that triggers the supervision- certificate requirement from USD 85/kg — itself already an increase from an earlier USD 60/kg floor — to USD 170/kg, a 100% jump. Consignments declared at or below the new threshold cannot clear customs without a "gözetim belgesi" obtained in advance from the Directorate. Article 8 of the amending communiqué sets entry into force sixty days after publication, i.e. 15 September 2025.

A companion communiqué amending Tebliğ No: 2024/8 was published the same Resmî Gazete day, separately raising the reference value for doped-silicon "blue wafer" circuit boards used in cell manufacturing — filed elsewhere in this register as a distinct GTA intervention given its later (December 2025) effective date and separate HS coverage.

Downstream implications

• Doubling, not a new mechanism. This is a parameter increase

on an existing surveillance line opened in 2023, not a new trade instrument — consistent with Türkiye's pattern of incrementally tightening reference-value floors on strategic solar inputs as domestic cell/module capacity (YEKA GES pipeline) scales up.

• China and Cambodia exposure. GTA names China and Cambodia as

the principal exporters affected; Cambodia has emerged as a transshipment/relocation point for Chinese-owned solar-cell capacity following US and EU trade-remedy pressure on China-origin cells, so this measure also has a secondary effect of closing off Türkiye as an alternative low-cost sourcing channel.

• Complements local-content policy. Runs in parallel with

Türkiye's YEKA GES tender local-content scoring (see 2024-11-04-turkey-yeka-ges-2024-solar-tender), reinforcing the same domestic-manufacturing-protection objective from the import side rather than the procurement side.

Open questions

• Does the reference value get raised again in a subsequent

amendment, and should that be logged as an amendments: row here rather than a new action?

• Is there a parallel anti-dumping investigation into Chinese

photovoltaic cells (as with the sodium-gluconate case) that should be tracked as a responds_to-linked follow-on?