March 17, 2004

 

 

Vietnam Poultry Trade Back On Track After Bird Flu

 

Vietnam's poultry trade has resumed following a long lay-off as a result of the bird flu outbreak. A factory in Dong Nai Province has started killing chickens and a supermarket is now selling imported eggs and chickens.

 

The Thailand-owned CP Food Processing Factory in Dong Nai last Saturday got orders from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) to kill 250 chickens, now preserved in the factory's cold storage.

 

The company bought the chickens from a bird flu free area in Dong Nai's Long Thanh District.

 

The chickens will be served as the main course to participants of this week's MARD conference in HCM City about measures to resume the poultry industry as the avian influenza crisis ebbs.

 

Earlier, MARD asked HCM City and Dong Nai's veterinary services to help the CP factory transport slaughtered chickens to HCM City.

 

Vietnam still strictly controls activities relating to poultry transport and slaughter to prevent further outbreak of bird flu.

 

"Dong Nai Province is completing procedures to be declared free of bird flu," says Dang The Duong, Deputy Director of Dong Nai's Veterinary Department.

 

A number of farmers in Dong Nai have received veterinary safety stamps for chicken eggs.

 

"However the quantity of eggs passing the veterinary department's quarantine measures is still small. Few farmers have resumed chicken raising and there are many regulations which have hindered egg transportation to HCM City," Mr Duong says.

 

Starting last weekend, the German-owned Metro Cash & Carry Vietnam in HCM City began selling eggs imported from Europe and chicken imported from Australia.

 

Canned eggs with yolk and egg white are chiefly supplied to restaurant and hotel bakeries.

 

Poultry products including chicken legs and wings are sold at VND38,000 (US$2.50) a kilogram. In the past two days 1,600kg of chicken was sold at Metro Cash & Carry's two centres in HCM City.

 

Fresh poultry eggs and cooked poultry products licensed by HCM City's health department have been allowed in HCM City since early this month.

 

"But the products are not seen at the city's supermarkets because customers do not like processed and cooked poultry," said Sai Gon Co-op Supermarket's marketing manager Pham Thi Thanh Tuyen.

 

"We're waiting for qualified chicken suppliers from Dong Nai and Binh Duong provinces when they're authorised to resume operations," she said.

 

Binh Duong Province was declared free of bird flu on Sunday. No new reports of bird flu have occurred in the last 30 days in the province.

 

Before resuming the poultry industry, the province will experimentally raise chicken at a number of selected farms.