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Japan lifts poultry import bans
The Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has
permitted a partial resumption of poultry imports from Britain, and has also
reopened its doors to imports from the Phillipines.
The ban against British poultry has been partially lifted because the
country's most recent outbreak of avian influenza involved the low pathogenic
H7N3 strain rather than the deadly H5N1 strain.
Shipments from
Norfolk in the east of the country where local farms were struck by the virus,
however, will remain suspended. Japan imports the bulk of the original stocks of
chickens it uses and consumes the meat and eggs mainly of their third-generation
offspring. Of some 1 million chickens imported last year, about 370,000 came
from Britain.
Japan was the first country to ban imports of British
poultry amid growing concerns about the threat of avian flu.
Japan
will also resume importing products from the Phillipines after successful talks
between the two countries on lifting Tokyo's ban on Philippine poultry
products.
Shipments are expected to resume on June 7, according to
the Phillipine Ministry for Agriculture.
Japan stopped importing
poultry products from the Philippines last year amid fears of an outbreak of
bird flu in the archipelago.
Editor WorldPoultry
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