China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Friday that it would impose initial anti-dumping measures on chicken imports from the United States.

The preliminary ruling required importers of chicken products from the United States to place deposits at Chinese customs starting from Feb. 13, according to a statement on the MOC website.

The statement said investigations showed the U.S. producers had dumped chicken products on the Chinese market, caused substantial damage to China's domestic industry.

The statement also listed dumping margins for chicken products from producers who responded to the anti-dumping investigations from 43.1 percent to 80.5 percent and for those who did not respond to the investigations at 105.4 percent.

The investigations were launched on Sept. 27, 2009.