March 30, 2007

Japan doubles chicken companies from China approved for imports

Japan's farm ministry has recently given approval to 56 Chinese meat processing facilities to ship cooked chicken to Japan, raising the number of such facilities to 91, Jiji Press reported Thursday (March 29).

The 56 facilities were the same ones which have been processing pork bound for Japan.

Officials at Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries recently inspected the facilities and qualified them for export to Japan.

Japan agreed to increase the number of designated chicken processing facilities in January in exchange for China's pledge to approve imports of Japanese rice before April 11-13, when Premier Wen Jiabao visits Japan.

China accounted for 195,000 tonnes, or more than half of the 345,000 tonnes of cooked chicken imported by Japan in 2006.

The figure is expected to increase as there is high demand in Japan for low-priced Chinese chicken, sources said.

Japan banned Chinese chicken imports, both cooked and raw, in January 2004 due to bird flu in China. Imports of cooked chicken processed at 35 designated facilities were resumed but raw chicken imports are still banned.