January 12, 2017

Hong Kong on Wednesday said it has banned the import of poultry meat and products from some areas of Poland, France, Britain, the Czech Republic and Croatia.

The Chinese news agency Xinhua reported that the decision was made by the Center for Food Safety (CFS) of Hong Kong's Food and Environmental Hygiene Department after it had received notifications from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) about bird flu outbreaks in parts of those countries.

According to the CFS, Hong Kong imported about 18,700 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and 4.8 million poultry eggs from Poland in the first 11 months of 2015; about 14,000 tonnes of frozen and chilled poultry meat and 17.4 million poultry eggs from France; and about 14,500 tonnes of frozen and chilled poultry meat and 660,000 poultry eggs from Britain.

At present, Hong Kong doesn't import poultry meat and products from the Czech Republic and Croatia since it has not established any protocol with these two countries for imports of poultry meat and eggs.

"The CFS has contacted the Polish, French, Czech, Croatian and British authorities over the issues and will closely monitor information issued by the OIE on avian influenza outbreaks in the countries concerned," the CFS was quoted as saying.