China imposes anti-dumping duties on US broiler chicken

China imposes anti-dumping duties on US broiler chicken






Monday, September 27, 2010

AFP



BEIJING -- China will levy anti-dumping duties of up to 105 percent on imports of U.S. chicken products, the government said Sunday, in a move likely to ratchet up trade tensions between the two nations.

"The U.S. chicken industry has dumped broiler products into the Chinese market and caused substantial damage to the domestic industry," the commerce ministry said in a statement on its website.



The duties take effect on Monday, it said.



China will slap anti-dumping levies of over 50 percent on up to 35 U.S. chicken broiler exporters including Tyson Foods Inc., Keystone Foods LLC, Pilgrim's Pride Corporation and Sanderson Farms Inc., the statement said.



Levies of over 105 percent will be placed on imported chicken broilers, a type of chicken raised specifically for meat production, from all other U.S. producers, it said.



The measures will apply for five years and follow up preliminary tariffs on the same products issued by the ministry in February.



According to China's state-run Xinhua news agency, the U.S. exported 584,000 tonnes of chicken products to China in 2008, up 12 percent year-on-year.



In the first half of 2009, China imported 305,000 tonnes of chicken products from the United States, representing 89 percent of China's total chicken imports, it said.



China and the United States have been at odds over a range of trade issues from steel to paper to chemicals, amid a spat over the value of the yuan, which critics say has been kept low to give Chinese exporters an unfair advantage.



Late last month, China slapped countervailing duties of four to 30.3 percent on U.S. broiler imports, in what the ministry called final tariffs on U.S. chicken products that had benefited from unfair subsidies.









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