The first trial reporting period for the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) ends at the end of February 2024. According to the Financial Times, the European Commission provided statistics on initial reporting, showing that China reported more than twice as many carbon-intensive products as any other country. Taiwan also ranked in the top five, slightly surpassing India. Why? The CBAM began its pilot program in October 2023. Originally scheduled for January 2024, the EU delayed the initial carbon data collection by 30 days due to technical issues, completing it at the end of last month. However, due to the initial reporting period, issues such as difficulty logging into the system and a generally low reporting completion rate were noted, pending further adjustments by the CBAM implementing agency. With the implementation of the CBAM, EU importers submitted their first reporting period for products in the fourth quarter of 2023. According to reporting data obtained by the Financial Times through interviews with the European Commission, Taiwan ranked in the top five for carbon-intensive products, slightly surpassing India. Of the 13,000 reports submitted by EU manufacturers, approximately 5,000 entries indicated Taiwan as the source. Unsurprisingly, China leads the way in exports of carbon-intensive products, with approximately 25,000 items. The United States follows closely behind with approximately 10,000 items, more than half the number of items China exports. The United Kingdom, Turkey, Taiwan, and India all report between 5,000 and 10,000 items. South Korea and Japan report far fewer than 5,000 items. Looking at the export value of each of the six industries covered by CBAM to the EU, China also leads, followed by Turkey, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, India, and South Korea.
