BEIJING - China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said on Friday that it will impose provisional anti-dumping cash deposits on imported alloy-steel pipes from the European Union (EU), Japan and the United States.

Effective from Dec 17, the cash deposits will range from 11.4 percent to 44.2 percent for companies from the EU, 9.2 percent to 39 percent for US companies, and 36.6 percent on companies from Japan, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

The ministry said a seven-month investigation found that producers in the EU, Japan and the US had been dumping alloy-steel pipes onto the Chinese market, which had caused "substantial damage" to Chinese industry.

In May, the ministry launched anti-dumping probes on some alloy-steel seamless pipes imported from the European Union, the United States and Japan, to examine whether and to what extent such imports have hurt Chinese businesses.