February 10, 2004
Thailand To Convince Poultry Importers Of Safe Chicken
The Thai Commerce Ministry has invited food companies from Japan and Europe to visit Thailand in a bid to reassure them about the safety of Thai chicken products.
"Key chicken importers will visit us to discuss food safety issues, while we will try to persuade them to buy Thai chicken again," Commerce Minister Watana Muangsook said Monday.
In late January, Japan suspended imports of both uncooked and cooked chicken from Thailand, while the European Union banned just raw chicken products.
Japan and the E.U. account for around 90% of Thailand's more than $1 billion in chicken exports.
The Thai health ministry, citing studies by the World Health Organization, has said the H5N1 virus can be destroyed by heat in the cooking process. Since then, the government has been asking Japan to resume imports of Thai cooked chicken.
Watana said importers of Thai chicken have returned 3 billion baht ($1=THB39.102) worth of chicken products since the beginning of January.
"Those returned products will be tested. If the bird-flu virus is found, they will be destroyed," Watana said.
"Otherwise, chicken meat will be cooked, then labeled as safe, and resold domestically and abroad," he said.
Watana said domestic demand for chicken has started to pick up, as the government campaign to boost consumer confidence is paying off.
On Saturday the government gave away 60 tons of cooked chicken meat and eggs at a feast in Bangkok.
Avian influenza has killed 18 people and ravaged poultry farms in 10 Asian nations and territories. Governments have slaughtered more than 50 million chickens and banned poultry imports to try to contain its spread.
Bird flu has jumped to people in Vietnam and Thailand, with health officials tracing most of those cases directly to contact with sick birds.
In Thailand, the virus has been found among poultry in 40 of the country's 76 provinces, and officials have culled around 26 million birds.
