China Slaps Double Duties on Distillers’ Grains Imports from US

China will impose an anti-subsidy duty on imports of distillers’ dried grains with or without solubles from the U.S., adding to an anti-dumping deposit introduced last week.

The provisional anti-subsidy duties range from 10 percent to 10.7 percent and will be implemented from Sept. 30, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Wednesday. Imports from suppliers including Poet LLC, Big River Resources LLC and Marquis Energy LLC will incur duties between 10 percent and 10.5 percent, the ministry said. Imports from other companies not listed in today’s announcement will have a 10.7 percent duty imposed, it said.

A preliminary decision from authorities was that imports of subsidized U.S. distillers’ dried grains has hurt China’s domestic industry, according to the ministry. The anti-subsidy duty will be in addition to an anti-dumping deposit of 33.8 percent imposed last week. Chinese buyers will have to pay deposits on the after-tax imported price to customs.

China imported a record 6.8 million metric tons of DDGS in 2015, worth about $2 billion, according to Shanghai JC Intelligence Co., citing official customs data. The nation is the world’s biggest buyer and almost all of its imports come from the U.S. Feed mills in China, the largest pork producer and consumer, use DDGS as a substitute for domestic corn and soybean meal in animal feed.