May 25, 2007

 

China still pressing US to allow processed chicken imports

 

 

China remains anxious to be cleared to export processed chicken products to the US and the process here to allow for the imports is still moving ahead, despite recent pet food scare concerning Chinese supplement imports.

 

Richard Raymond, under secretary for food safety at the US Department of Agriculture, met with visiting Chinese government officials Wednesday (May 23) and will do so again Thursday, he told Dow Jones Newswires.

 

He said the topic of Chinese chicken exports was brought up in the Wednesday discussions and he expects it to be brought up again Thursday.

 

Raymond, USDA Secretary Mike Johanns, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and others are meeting here Thursday with Chinese Health Minister Qiang Gao and General Administration of Quality Supervision Minister, Inspection and Quarantine Changjiang Li.

 

USDA's Raymond has said as recently as April that he was confident in China's ability to export processed chicken safely because food safety audits were conducted in China by USDA officials. Raymond said then that the level of scrutiny on human food products is much tighter than for pet food products, which are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

 

Recently, pet food made with imported Chinese supplements contaminated with the toxic chemical melamine sickened dogs and cats and was found to have been fed to chicken and hogs in the US. Some of the imported Chinese supplements were sent to Canada, mixed into fish food and sent back to the US.

 

USDA and FDA officials have said testing proves that human health was not threatened by livestock that ate the contaminated feed.

 

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Connecticut, a vocal opponent of the Bush administration's plan to allow in Chinese processed chicken exports, has called it "dangerous".

 

The tainted pet food supplements, she said earlier this month, are just the latest reason why she has "become more alarmed about (USDA's) dogmatic insistence on moving forward with a proposal that would allow domestic Chinese chicken to enter the country".

 

China is already allowed to ship processed chicken to the US, but only if the raw chicken is of US origin and only as long as it is cooked during the processing. The new rule the USDA is working on goes further by seeking to allow China to export its own domestically grown chicken after cooking.

 

Meanwhile, China continues to rebuff US request that it lift restrictions on US beef. China banned US beef in December 2003 after the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, was discovered.

 

USDA's Johanns, who met with visiting Chinese officials this week during the bilateral US-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, said he pressed them on opening up to US beef, but stressed there was no "breakthrough".