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US chicken put under dumping probe
By Wang Xiaotian (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-28 07:00

China started anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations yesterday into imported chicken products from the United States, the Ministry of Commerce said.

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The move was welcome news to the Chinese chicken industry, which has seen profits decline over the last three years amid rising chicken imports.

She Feng, general manager of Huadu Foodstuff, the main chicken provider for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, said: "The imports are too cheap. They are eating into our profits."

China announced it would consider probes into dumping and subsidies for chicken and auto products from the US two days after US President Barack Obama imposed tariffs on tires from China on Sept 13.

"Definitely it is revenge to get equal, which is not rare under World Trade Organization rules," said Zhou Shijian, a senior analyst at the Sino-US relations research center of Tsinghua University.

The two governments are also involved in disputes over steel pipes, music and movies. Last Tuesday, China appealed a US victory over restrictions on the sale of music, films and books in the Chinese market.

Last week, a US labor union and three paper companies announced they had filed a new trade complaint over imports of Chinese paper, AP reported yesterday.

The US is the largest chicken products exporter to China, comprising 90 percent of the 407,000 tons of chicken China imported in the first half of this year.

Ma Chuang, deputy secretary-general of the China Animal Agriculture Association, said: "Subsidy support from the US government for soy and maize reduced the feed cost of chicken products. Feed makes up 70 percent of the entire cost of raising chicken."