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Live chicken shipments to HK resumed
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TRUCKS carrying 1.28 million live chickens rolled into Hong Kong via Shenzhen's Wenjindu Checkpoint on Friday, thus becoming the first batch supplied to Hong Kong which stopped importing such imports after an outbreak of avian flu.
Officials conducted detailed checks of the chickens, which had undergone isolated quarantine examination for five days before being sent out from a SZ chicken farm. Huang Yunsheng, director-general of the SZ Entry and Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau, verified that the exported chickens are all licensed and were produced under strict supervision.
The latest bird flu outbreak resulted in a massive cull and cleanup of Hong Kong's poultry stalls. About 1.37 million birds were killed in a massive slaughter and businesses were kept shut for weeks. A similar virus struck the territory in 1997, killing six people and making many more sick.
Officials said the resumed imports of live chickens would put Hong Kong's devastated poultry industry back in business after being shut down for almost a month.
The inland areas of China provide 90 per cent of the poultry sold in the Hong Kong market, where some 50 million birds are sold each year.
Over 52 million birds were exported to Hong Kong last year by way of the Wenjindu Checkpoint, 37.7 million of them live chickens.
(SD-Agencies)
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