March 2, 2004

Macau To Resume Chicken Imports From Zhuhai

Macau will resume importing live and frozen chickens from Zhuhai on Friday, ending a five-week suspension sparked by the regional bird flu outbreak.

Hong Kong has not lifted its ban on mainland chicken imports. Officials have said the ban will last for at least six more months. Permanent Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Carrie Yau Tsang Ka-lai, who is visiting Beijing, said the government would consider the resumption of chilled chicken imports first.

Cecilia Cheung So-mui, vice-chairman of the Macau Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, said imports would initially be restricted to live and frozen chickens, and that the two cities had not yet decided when imports of other types of poultry, such as ducks, would resume.

Ms Cheung also said the number of live chickens imported from Zhuhai every day would depend on market conditions in Macau. Birds could not be kept alive at the city's markets overnight.

"Those not sold during the day of import will be slaughtered that night so they can later only be sold frozen," she said. The decision to resume imports was taken after tests showed that none of the farms previously producing chickens for export were affected by bird flu, she said.

Before the ban was implemented on January 31, Macau imported a daily average of between 8,000 and 10,000 live chickens from Guangdong, about 70 per cent of them from Zhuhai. The ban on chicken imports from the rest of Guangdong will remain in force.

Ms Cheung also said that once the imports of live chickens resumed, strict public health measures - such as standardised laboratory tests agreed by the two sides - would be implemented.

Zhu Shaozhi, deputy director-general of the Zhuhai Entry and Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, said the two sides would strengthen measures to clamp down on contraband poultry.

A spokesman for the Macau Poultry Traders Association welcomed the lifting of the ban. "We know that it's safe to import live chickens from Zhuhai again, and Macau people prefer freshly slaughtered chicken meat," the spokesman said.