March 8, 2004

Macao Resumes Poultry Imports From China

Renewed poultry exports from south China's Guangdong Province entered retail markets in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) Friday, which would gradually ease a month-long market thirst resulted in a tightened bird-flu quarantine control.

Macao ordered some 3,500 live chickens from Zhuhai City in Guangdong on the first day of resumption of the imports, after a five-week suspension due to the bird-flu threat. The daily sum of imports will be continued until normal poultry imports are resumed.

Zhuhai, which is adjacent to Macao, contributes 70 percent of poultry exports from the mainland to Macao, which used to import 8,000 to 10,000 live chickens daily from the mainland to satisfy themarket demand.

Zhuhai suspended the supply in January after individual bird-flu cases were verified in small poultry farms.

According to the Macao Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, Macao's resumed live chicken supply has been undertaken by three designated poultry farms in Zhuhai, which have not found the epidemic.

The bureau vowed to supervise the distribution of live chickens for direct sales, which is carried out every afternoon after the shipment arrives in Macao in the morning.

For public hygiene concerns, all live chickens not sold in Macao by the evening on the day of import are mandated to be slaughtered so that they can later be sold as frozen meat, said the bureau.

Macao's initial poultry imports from Zhuhai Friday also included 7 tons of frozen poultry, such as chickens, ducks and pigeons.

Live poultry almost disappeared in retail markets in Macao for a month, during which frozen poultry products imported from Braziland America had taken the vacancy.

Macao has some 448,000 residents and an average of 35,000 visitors a day. Chickens are an integral part of Macao's Sino-Portuguese culinary heritage, which has become a major tourist attraction.