* EU backs five-year tariffs on Chinese industrial yarn
* Duties to balance out export pricing deemed illegal by EU
* High-tenacity yarn duties rise to about 14 percent
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By Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck
BRUSSELS, Oct 13 (Reuters) - The European Union continued its drive to slow Chinese imports on Wednesday, with national governments of the 27-member bloc endorsing tariffs on three kinds of industrial inputs from China.
Government representatives meeting in Brussels backed plans by the EU's executive Commission for five-year duties on Chinese-made yarn used in conveyor belts, seat belts and car tires, EU diplomats said.
In a nod to the EU's struggling car industry -- which uses high-tenacity yarn and has opposed the duties -- China's largest producer of high-tenacity yarn Zhejiang Hailide New Material Co is exempt from duties.
Government representatives also approved another plan to renew existing duties on bottle plastic and a third plan to levy tariffs on a type of Chinese-made laminate, the diplomats said.
Based on last year's imports and the highest tariff level, the duties -- designed to balance out what the EU says is illegal market dumping by Chinese exporters -- add up to less than 20 million euros a year for the three products combined.
That is a small sum against the 214.7 billion euros of Chinese goods imported into Europe last year but likely to upset EU industrial users and irritate EU-China relations already strained by currency tensions and a slew of new EU tariffs.
Duties on so-called high-tenacity yarn will stay in place for five years and be worth up to about 14 percent -- more than under a temporary tariff regime put in place this summer. They will no longer apply against South Korea and Taiwan as they did under the temporary regime.
The plan faced opposition because of concerns for EU importers, one diplomat said, and approval for the duties came thanks to several abstentions, which under EU law count as votes in favour.
Chinese-made melamine - a flame-retardant substance used as a laminate -- will be subject to a provisional tariff of up to more than 50 percent while the EU considers whether to put in place tariffs for the maximum period of five years, diplomats said.
On Chinese plastic used for making drinks bottles and food packaging, Wednesday's vote extended duties in place since 2004 for another five years rather than allowing them to expire next month.
Separately, governments voted in favour of extending for five years existing duties on Indian graphite electrodes used in steel-smelting furnaces. The EU says India gives illegal subsidies to the sector and producers dump exports on the EU market. (Reporting by Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck, Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)