BEIJING: China will immediately end an anti-dumping probe on imports of US distillers' dried grains, opening the gates for more purchases of the feed ingredient from the United States, the Asian giant's commerce ministry said on Thursday.

Feed mills in China, the world's top meat consumer, substitute distillers' dried grains for corn and sometimes soymeal. Domestic annual production of about 3.5 million tonnes of the by-product from the manufacture of corn-based ethanol cannot satisfy domestic mills' demand.

China's commerce ministry launched the probe one-and-a-half years ago at the request of four Chinese ethanol makers, threatening trade that grew massively in 2009 and 2010, when the country briefly became the world's largest importer of the grains..

In a statement, the commerce ministry said the four companies had withdrawn the request on May 10, and asked for the termination of investigation, which had been due to run until June 28.

"It is good news for Chinese feed mills, which have been expecting this to happen for some time," said one official of an industry body that promotes US distillers' dried grains (DDGs).

China's imports of DDGs fell 47 percent last year because of the probe to stand at 1.68 million tonnes. The 2010 figure of 3.16 million, worth more than $753 million, was a dramatic increase of 385 percent over the previous year.

China's imports this year could hit 2 million tonnes, estimated the official, who declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Imports in May jumped 346 percent to 294,704 tonnes, bringing the first five months' total imports to 913,371 tonnes, official Customs data show. "But US supplies right now are tight, after some ethanol plants have shut down for maintenance," said the official.

Production of ethanol in the United States dropped 2 percent over the last week as plants continued to slow output due to poor profit margins.

21 Jun, 2012, 04.00PM IST

Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com