BEIJING -- The Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced on Monday it would begin imposing an anti-dumping tax on potato starch imported from the European Union (EU) from February 6 this year.

Import operators will be required to pay an anti-dumping tax of 17 to 35 percent to Chinese customs depending on how serious the MOC judges the dumping to be.

An MOC official said that its investigation of imported potato starch began on February 6 2006. On the basis of its preliminary investigations, the MOC decided to take temporary anti-dumping measures on August 18, 2006.

Since then, the MOC's investigations have shown that the imports have done severe damage to the domestic starch industry.

The MOC official said that investigation of imported potato starch was carried out in response to applications by domestic firms and the case was the first to involve farm produce.

The anti-dumping measures would protect the development of the domestic starch industry and raise the income of three million farming households in economically-underdeveloped regions in northeast, north, northwest and southwest China, said the official.