Two Chinese groups have withdrawn from a solar project in Romania after the European Union launched a fair competition investigation against them, an EU official said Monday, reports Nikkei Asia. A subsidiary of LONGi Green Energy Technology, a leading maker of solar panels, is no longer pursuing the project to build the photovoltaic park, Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market, said in a statement. Two subsidiaries under Shanghai Electric Group, an electrical equipment supplier, also have dropped out, according to the statement.
The two groups were part of separate consortiums in the bidding. In April, the European Commission opened an investigation into whether the consortiums were beneficiaries of large, undisclosed subsidies from the Chinese government. The two groups would have been blocked from bidding had the probe discovered violations.
The European Commission will end its probe of the Chinese groups in light of their withdrawal from the bidding, the statement said.