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

Official sources say that the ministry had carefully evaluated applications from domestic chicken producers, and found grounds for investigation.

"The Ministry of Commerce believes that this case meets the legal conditions and has decided to conduct an investigation of unfair trade practices like dumping and subsidising of US chicken products," the ministry said, adding that the case had been requested by Chinese chicken producers.

"The case will be decided according to law and facts."

The United States is the largest chicken products exporter to China, comprising 90 per cent of the 407,000 tonnes of chicken China imported in the first half of 2009.

The US poultry industry had used the threat of the Chinese investigation, and curbs on wing and feet imports, to lobby for an end to a Congressional prohibition against the US Department of Agriculture moving ahead on certifying Chinese plants for exporting cooked poultry to the US.

China has already brought a World Trade Organization (WTO) case against the ban.

On 25 September, US lawmakers agreed to remove the ban from the USDA funding bill but restated that poultry processed in China must live up to US sanitary conditions before being shipped.

Imports from the US are equal to about half of the total output of Chinese poultry producers, and rose to over 60 per cent of Chinese production in the first half of this year, the Ministry of Commerce said, citing figures from the Chinese Animal Agricultural Association.

The case joins a number of anti-dumping cases being conducted by both sides, including a Chinese investigation of US-made silicon steel and US investigations of a number of Chinese steel products.

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