Bird flu hinders attempts to open Chinese market to European poultry

On 27 November China’s Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) banned any poultry products and birds from entering China if they were produced and reared in North-Rhine Westphalia. This German state has been the centre of Germany’s bird flu outbreak.

Andreas Hofem, an official at the German embassy in Beijing, told GlobalMeatNews​ that the ban would stay until 1 November next year. The restriction comes at a bad time, as Germany has been seeking general market access approvals for selling German poultry and poultry products to mainland China.

Meanwhile, the UK has voluntarily suspended exports of live poultry and hatching eggs to China, following the outbreak of a bird flu case at a duck breeding farm in Yorkshire, said Martin Cui, communications officer (prosperity), at the British embassy in Beijing.

Cui told GlobalMeatNews​ that the Sino-UK poultry and hatching eggs trade had yet to grow to significant levels and the UK would inform its Chinese partners when exports were resumed. Cui said the UK and China were discussing securing approvals for Britain to export poultry meat to China, although it was not known when these talks would end.

Looking ahead to the next five years, Cui said the British meat trade was not only looking forward to exporting animals and animal products to China, but also developing scientific and technical collaboration to solve shared challenges around food safety and agricultural productivity.

Dutch poultry exporters are less concerned about the impact of their bird flu outbreak on opening China to their products. Thierry van Es, at the Netherlands embassy in Beijing, said there were no current sales, but that Dutch efforts would focus on promoting beef and veal sales rather than poultry anyway.

"The Chinese meat market could be very interesting for Dutch products in the next five years. China is slowly opening its market for imported beef,"​ said Van Es, who noted that Chinese demand for beef was strong and growing.