Nearly 500 poultry dealers yesterday voted against both of the government's options for reforming the industry.
The dealers met to discuss the measures, outlined in the government's anti-bird flu consultation paper, and said neither centralised nor regional slaughtering were acceptable. Centralised slaughtering would involve a single slaughterhouse providing chilled chickens to retailers, while in the second option, regional slaughterhouses would be set up and slaughtered chickens delivered unchilled.
Neither option leaves open the possibility of live retail sales.
Steven Wong Wai-chuen, chairman of the Hong Kong Poultry Wholesale and Retailing Association, said the 350 retailers and more than 100 wholesalers and transport workers at yesterday's meeting indicated, in their responses to a questionnaire his group distributed, that they preferred to keep the existing system.
The 350 retailers also objected to the proposal to increase the number of 'rest days' for poultry stalls in markets from once a month to once a week.
Three hundred of the retailers voted against the government's plan to buy back the licences of about half the poultry stalls. The remaining 50 agreed to hand over their licences - if they were paid between $500,000 and $800,000.