WASHINGTON - THE United States said on Tuesday it set preliminary duties ranging from 2 per cent to 438 per cent on hundreds of millions of dollars of imported steel wire decking from China to offset government subsidies.

It was the latest in a growing list of actions against imports from China, the United States' second-largest trading partner.

Since January, the Commerce Department has launched at least one dozen investigations into charges that Chinese companies receive government subsidies that allow them to sell more cheaply than US competitors or 'dump' goods in the United States at unfairly low prices regardless of profit or loss.

The preliminary decision on Tuesday concerns a product, welded-wire rack decking, used in industrial and other commercial storage rack systems. US companies imported an estimated US$317 million (S$444 million) of the such decking in 2008, an increase of 49 per cent from 2006.

The Commerce Department said it set countervailing duty rates of 2.02 per cent for Dalian Huameilong Metal Products Co and 3.13 per cent for Dalian Eastfound Metal Products. Both cooperated in its investigation.

But a significant number of Chinese companies did not complete the US government's questionnaire and those companies were given an adverse countervailing duty rate of 437.37 per cent 'for non-responsiveness,' the department said. -- REUTERS