HONG KONG, April 15 (Xinhuanet) -- The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government announced Thursday the implementation of a pilot scheme on the resumption of live chicken importation.

    HKSAR Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong metwith Minister of the State General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) Li Changjiang on Thursday and agreed that a pilot scheme on the resumption of importation of live chickens from the mainland will start on April 20.

    "Given that the outbreak situation in the mainland is now under control and that surveillance has been stepped up, we proposed to pilot the importation of live poultry in suitable quantity on a trial basis in order to evaluate the new system before May 12," Yeoh said.

    The first phase of the pilot arrangement will last three days from April 20 to 22. Not more than 6,000 live chickens will be imported per day. April 23 to 25 will be the rest days of the wholesale and retail markets and no live chickens would be imported, the government will evaluate the first phase importation within that period so as to arrange importation in the second phase.

    Yeoh said, if the results of the first phase are satisfactory, the government would consider gradually increasing the daily quantities of imported live poultry on a step-by-step basis.

    Yeoh said that officials of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department had visited a number of mainland registered farms supplying live poultry to Hong Kong.

    "The recent visits to the mainland registered farms indicated that the farms have adopted the necessary precautionary measures to prevent the occurrence of avian influenza and instituted appropriate surveillance programs to detect the presence of H5N1 virus.

    "Moreover, all birds to be exported to Hong Kong will have to be segregated from other birds for five days before export. The consignments arriving in Hong Kong at the initial stage of the resumption of importation will be subject to the hold-and-test arrangement. These consignments will only be released to the market if they are tested H5 avian influenza free in the screeningtest," Yeoh said.

    Li Changjiang said that the central government has been paying much attention to the avian flu issue, and took corresponding measures to control the disease during the outbreak in certain areas.

    Li reaffirmed that all the mainland registered farms supplying live poultry to Hong Kong had remained avian influenza free. Enditem