January 14, 2005

China Seeks To Resume Exports of Uncooked Chicken To Japan

China is urging Japan to resume imports of uncooked chicken, which Tokyo halted after the outbreak of bird flu in the country, arguing that no cases of the disease have been found since July, Japanese embassy officials said Friday.

The last time China confirmed a case of bird flu was last July in the eastern province Anhui.

Chinese government officials made the request to a group of officials from Japan's agricultural and health ministries visiting China this week, the officials added.

Hirofumi Kugita, head of the agricultural ministry's International Animal Health Affairs Office, who was part of the group, said that the appropriate data needs to be analyzed from actionc an be taken to reverse the ban. 

"There is still no clear outlook" on when, or if, Japan will resume the imports, he said.

Japan halted imports of chicken after the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza was detected in China in January last year. It later resumed imports of cooked chicken, but has yet to allow uncooked meat from China to enter Japan.

As a result, Japan's imports of uncooked chicken from China for the January-November period last year totaled just 8,406 tons, down from 62,980 tons in 2003.

Imports of cooked chicken from the January-November period was 108,747 tons.

That compares with 136,414 tons for all of 2003. The figure for December last year is not yet available.

Chicken imports from countries such as Brazil are currently replacing the supply drain from the ban on imports of uncooked chicken from China, an agricultural ministry official in Tokyo said.