China imposes anti-dumping duties on U.S. chicken products

China will levy anti-dumping duties of between 50.3 percent to 105.4 percent on imports of U.S. chicken products from Monday, the Ministry of Commerce announced Sunday.

The U.S. chicken industry has dumped broiler products into the Chinese market and caused substantial damage to the domestic industry, the ministry said in an online statement, citing the results of an investigation initiated one year ago.

"The ruling is that there is a causal relationship between the U.S. dumping of broiler products and the losses suffered by domestic businesses," the statement said.

The tariff rate for products China imports from Tyson Foods Inc. and Keystone Foods LLC. is 50.3 percent and that for Pilgrim's Pride Corporation is 53.4 percent, according to the statement.

Sanderson Farms Inc. and 31 other American companies face duties of 51.8 percent. Other U.S. producers face a 105.4-percent duty.

The anti-dumping measures will be applied to the products for five years, according to the statement.

The move comes after China imposed anti-subsidy duties ranging from 4 percent to 30.3 percent on U.S. chicken products in late August for five years, after it concluded U.S. producers had received improper government subsidies and hurt the domestic industry.

In 2008, U.S. exports of chicken products to China rose 12.34 percent year on year to 584,300 tonnes.

About 305,600 tonnes of U.S. chicken products landed in China in the first half of 2009, up 6.54 percent year on year and representing 89.24 percent of China's total chicken product imports.

Source: Xinhua