(Yicai Global) March 21 -- The United States Department of Commerce has announced its preliminary determinations in its anti-dumping investigation into stainless steel flanges imported from China and India.

"The commerce department preliminarily determined that exporters from China and India have sold stainless steel flanges in the United States at 257.11 percent, and 18.10 to 145.25 percent less than fair value," the DOC said on its official website. It will make a final ruling on June 5 before the US International Trade Commission makes its own final determination.

Exporters from the two countries will now have to pay US Customs and Border Protection cash deposits before sending their goods into the world's largest economy, whose stainless steel flange imports from China and Indian totaled around USD48.4 million in 2016, data from the DOC shows.

"The United States will not sit back and watch as our domestic businesses are destroyed by unfair foreign government subsidies and dumping," said Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. "This administration is taking fair and transparent action on behalf of American industry to defend businesses and workers while we continue reviewing the facts related to this decision."

The Coalition of American Flange Producers and its individual members requested the DOC begin anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on the products in question last September. The department preliminarily ruled in January that Chinese and Indian exporters received countervailing subsidies of 174.73 percent and from 5 to 239.61 percent.