October 12, 2004

Vietnam Strives To Boost Poultry Stock

Poultry farms in Vietnam have imported an additional 100,000 young fowl from the United Kingdom, France and Israel in a bid to build up their poultry stock in the post-bird flu period.

The figure brought the total imports of breed poultry to 300,000 since the country had stamped out bird flu, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD)'s Agriculture Department.

Vietnam declared it had bird flu under control on a national scale earlier this month.

Prices of a baby fowl presently stand at 2,500 - 7,000 Vietnamese dong (VND) (US $0.16- 0.45). This is a decline of 500 VND (US $0.03) compared with last month.

The MARD Agriculture Department also said it has allowed poultry farms nationwide to import 100,000 more breed poultry from now until the end of the year.

In addition to the poultry imports, twelve centrally run poultry farms have restored their operation and have supplied breeders with 15 million birds so far.

Bird flu had either killed or led to the forced culling of 2,500 quails, and around 100 chickens in Vietnam in August 2004.