Japan bans poultry imports from Taiwan

An outbreak of bird flu in Taiwan has caused Japan's agriculture ministry to suspend imports of Taiwanese poultry.

Japan's poultry imports from Taiwan totalled 4,348 tonnes in fiscal 2008, accounting for only 0.6% of total imports.

Duck meat imports from Taiwan account for about 80%. But Japanese ministry officials do not expect supplies to be affected, as there are enough inventories of frozen duck meat in Japan and the country can switch to alternative sources.

According to Taiwanese authorities, the low-pathogenic H5N2 strain of bird flu has been confirmed at one poultry farm there, with some 3,000 of 49,000 birds at the farm seen to have been infected with the virus.