The buzz of solar panel factories in this steaming island city does not sound that much. But for American trade officials, it is the muted noise of rules that are bent or broken.
In recent months, Batam, a tax -free Indonesian enclave, has become a short ferry ride from Singapore, an important waypoint in a complicated global shuffle. Chinese solar manufacturers, who are confronted with stiff American rates, quietly assemble their equipment in Indonesia and slide their products on the American market, tariff-free.
It is an elegant solution. But it can’t be long.
According to Bloomberg News analysis of trade and business records, the 10 largest exporters in Indonesia sold solar cells and panels in the first half of 2025 for $ 608 million in products to the US. Van de Bloomberg News identified six companies in Batam where business records indicate that they are ultimately owned by executives at Chinese Solar Companies. Those companies accounted for almost 70 percent of exports to the US.
Earlier in July, a coalition of American solar manufacturers, including First Solar Inc. and Mission Solar Energy, trade requests against Indonesia, India and Laos. They claimed that Chinese companies were gaming the system and flooded the American market with unfair cheap goods made in the three Asian countries. This has encouraged the American International Trade Commission to start an investigation into antidumping and compensatory allegations.
“Under President Trump, America is no longer a landfill for cheap import that undermines our industries and employees,” said Witte Huis spokesperson, Kush Desai. “While the Ministry of Trade is conducting an anti-dumping investigation into solar panels, the administration keeps closely supervision of the surrender and other methods to undermine our rates.”
The Trump government has not released a detailed definition of what exactly a transfer is. It is also unclear whether one of those on Chinese owned by Batam-based sun companies lives through Indonesia to avoid the steep American solar rates that effectively excludes the direct access of the Chinese companies to the lucrative American market if the companies really produce the products in Batam to count as an Indonesian origin. BP Batam, the Indonesian authority that manages the island economy, said it has not yet received confirmation about the start of an anti-dumping investigation. It works closely with the central and local government to support fair and transparent international trade, BP Batam said in response to a Bloomberg newsQuery.
“Until now, partner countries have recognized and appreciated the role of the Indonesian government, BP Batam and the Batam City government to navigate in a responsible manner through worldwide trading dynamics,” it said.
The Handelsministerie of Indonesia and the Chinese Ministry of Trade did not respond to a request for comments on the allegations of the American solar industry.
This would not be China’s first dance around trade barriers. When the Western countries brought rates on Chinese solar parties more than ten years ago, the manufacturers of the country simply moved production – first to Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The strategy worked. Southeast Asian export, often disguised Chinese, flowed in the American tariff-free for years.
By 2024, the region had become the largest solar exporter in the US. Then Washington moved the Maas in the hook.
Firstly, the US Department of Commerce, under former President Joe Biden, launched an antidumping and compensating probe against Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. The annual research showed that manufacturers dumped cheap exports to the American market at prices lower than production costs. Subsequently, in April, under President Donald Trump, the four Southeast Asian countries were hit with rates up to 3,521 percent.
“Solar companies with a Chinese headquarters have cheated the system, have undergone American companies and American employees have cost their livelihood,” said Tim Brightbill, co-chairman of the international commercial practice of Wiley law firm, in April. Brightbill is the leading counselor of the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, the coalition of sun companies that are successfully put pressure on the Commerce department to start the investigation.
The rates of April forced American buyers to rearrange where they shop. Indonesia, not covered by the statement, emerged as one of the biggest winners. BATAM, a popular place for cheap carbon trips and long weekend escape for Singaporese, changed to the destination for something else: Chinese capital and solar ambitions.
“Since other jurisdictions in Southeast Asia have come to an increasing test, factories have continued to move on a cat-and-mouse fashion,” says Niclas D. Weimar, head of technology at Sinovoltaics, a Dutch-German compliance and quality assurance company for the solar industry.
Some of the largest Chinese sun companies have landed there for the past two years and solar panels extend directly for the American market. Indonesia exported a total of $ 733 million in solar products to the US between January and May of this year, an increase of 350 percent compared to last year, according to US customs data.
An example: PT REC Solar Energy Indonesia, now the largest solar exporter in the country to the US. The company sent $ 219 million to panels in the Pacific in the first half of 2025 – almost all its output. It started to export from Batam in 2023, based on information from his older Ne Solar, a Cambodian company founded in 2022, according to their website.
Count a little deeper, and Cambodian business register shows that the previous director of Ne Solar Huang was Yunfei, who is also the owner of a Chinese manufacturer named Huzhou Zhongdian Solar. US and Canadian trademark data show that Huzhou Zhongdian Solar owns the trademark “Ne Solar”, while the Cambodian Ne -Zonne -Zonne owns the trademark in that country. The current director of Ne Solar is Cheng Shen, whose office address is in a Cambodian register shows, just 4 kilometers away from Huzhou Zhongdian Solar.
The tires do not end there. In the first half of 2025, PT imported 91 percent of its production material, or $ 92 million, from Huzhou Paluo Yunkeng New Materials, a company owned by the same owners as Huzhou Zhongdian, according to Chinese business files. In other words: the factory may be in Indonesia, but the supply chain – and control – seems to be strong Chinese. Calling to a personal telephone number stated for Cheng Shen on the Cambodia registration record remained unaccompanied, while Bloomberg News could not find contact details for Huang Yunfei. Calls to Huzhou Zhongdian also became unanswered. E -mail questions sent to Ne Solar and HUZHOUS Zhongdian were also unanswered.
Companies registries in Indonesia and China also list Chinese solar firms’ directors or subsidiaries as the beneficial owners of five other Batam-based companies – PT Nusa Solar Indonesia, PT Blue Sky Solar Indonesia, PT Allianz Solar Indonesia, PT Thornova Solar Indonesia and PT Msun Solar Indonesia.pt nusa and pt blue sky didn’t response to requests for comment when contacted by phone, and a pt nusa employee refused to immediately comment when he was reached on LinkedIn. Bloomberg News could not find telephone numbers for the rest of the companies in public registers or online. E -mails sent to all five companies were not responded, while messages sent to company staff at four of the companies on LinkedIn remained unanswered. Bloomberg News reporters have not visited these factories.
Together, the six companies in Chinese owned the property for $ 419 million in solar cells and panels directly to America in the first half of this year, an increase of 148% compared to a year ago.
The increase in solar energy export to the US is not limited to Indonesia. In Laos, which was also spared from the April rate, the export of solar energy in the first five months of this year of virtually nothing rose from virtually nothing to $ 717 million, according to the American trade data. This year India went from $ 10 million in 2022 to $ 345 million.
If the investigation of the American International Trade Commission against Indonesia, Laos and India concludes that there were unfair commercial practices, another tasks round could quickly hit. What raises the question: where are the Chinese solar giants going? The answer depends on how painful the new rates prove to be. Indonesia has negotiated Trump by a retribution rate rate that was initially determined 32 percent in April to 19 to 19 years earlier this month, making it more attractive than his neighbors, according to BNEF analyst Felix Kosasih. Yet many Chinese companies are not waiting to find out. In April Ja Solar told Bloomberg News that it accelerated its overseas expansion and followed the American tariff developments closely. Among his bets: A new plant in Oman expects to open by the end of 2025, with a capacity of six gigawatts for cells and three gigawatts for modules. Jinkosolar Holding Co., another heavyweight, is getting bigger. It builds a 10-gigawatt cell and module factory in Saudi Arabia, in collaboration with the sovereign asset fund and the vision industry of the Kingdom. Neither of the companies has indicated plans to sell to the American market.
Yet it is impossible to deny that Chinese sun companies have to come to the helm with Trump, says Cosimo Ries, a Shanghai -based analyst for researcher Trivium China.
“If you try to make a long -term decision to invest, it has become so unstable everywhere,” said Ries. “Especially solar energy, because it is one of the most attacked industries of all.”
But for the time being the vague hum of Batam’s sun factories will continue.
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Published on July 25, 2025
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