Washington : A US trade panel has voted to continue anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duty probe against Chinese aluminium products despite Beijing’s strong dissatisfaction with the move.

“There is a reasonable indication that a US industry is materially injured by imports of common alloy aluminium sheet from China… subsidised and sold in the US…,” the US International Trade Commission (USITC) said on Friday.

As such, the US Commerce Department would continue its probe with its preliminary anti-subsidy duty determination due in February and on anti-dumping due in April, the USITC said.

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC) had expressed strong dissatisfaction with the “self-initiated” US Commerce Department’s probe launched in November 2017.

It was the first time in 25 years that the US government had launched such investigations without a request from a US company or industry, Xinhua news agency said.

China would take all necessary measures to defend the rights of its own enterprises, Wang Hejum head of MOC said.

—IANS