BEIJING: China on Wednesday terminated its six-year-long anti-dumping measures on pyridine imports from India and Japan after the domestic producers asked the government to withdraw the reinvestigations of the duties.

Pyridine is an organic compound used as an important raw material and solvent in the production of pesticides, drugs, animal feed, food additives and other chemicals.

The Ministry of Commerce (MOC) announced that starting Thursday, the anti-dumping duties on pyridine imports from the two countries will be withdrawn. China imposed five-year anti-dumping tariffs on Indian and Japanese imports on November 21, 2013.

At the application of domestic producers, the MOC launched reinvestigation of the duties on November 21 last year to see whether harm on the local industry would continue should the duties be scrapped, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

But the domestic producers earlier this month filed an application asking the ministry to withdraw the reinvestigations, which the MOC accepted. Countries carry out anti-dumping probe to determine whether their domestic industries have been hurt because of a surge in cheap imports.

As a countermeasure, they impose duties under the multilateral regime of the World Trade Organization. The duty is aimed at ensuring fair trade practices and creating a level-playing field for domestic producers with regard to foreign producers and exporters.