February 23, 2006

Greece to increase financial aid for poultry farmers

Greece's finance ministry Wednesday (Feb 22) said it will guarantee loans from financial institutions to any poultry farmers who are experiencing financial problems as a result of falling sales associated with the bird flu crisis.

The ministry said it will guarantee loans for an amount equivalent to 7 percent of the operating costs of each poultry producer. In the event that the loans are not repaid, the state would have to pay slightly more than EUR40 million, the Ministry said.

In addition, the Finance Ministry is increasing to EUR12 million from EUR7 million the Foreign Ministry's funds for providing foreign food aid. The move is to try to help producers offload stocks of poultry products for foreign food aid use in order to boost producers' income.

According to Greece's Association of Poultry Producers, sales of poultry products in Greece have fallen by around 40 percent since Jan 1.

Meanwhile, another two wild birds in the country were confirmed positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu, raising the number of confirmed cases to nine, the agriculture ministry said Wednesday.

The ministry said the confirmation came from the EU reference laboratory in Weybridge, England.