Poultry trade fears loss of business
Hong Kong and mainland authorities disagree over the details of testing live chickens for melamine content, a spokesman for the live poultry wholesale trade said.
The chairman of the Hong Kong Poultry Wholesalers' Association, Tsui Ming-tuen, yesterday expressed worry that business might be affected since the two sides would probably take a long time to agree on how to conduct the testing.
A mainland official has criticised Hong Kong authorities for being unreasonable, and asked the mainland authority to go ahead and conduct tests on live chickens in its usual way, Mr Tsui said, citing a conversation he had with a mainland official.
'The official sounded very annoyed when I spoke to him on the phone,' he said. 'He said Hong Kong now imported only about 5,000 chickens a day, but the city authority made a fuss about everything concerning the melamine test.
'Testing chickens is more complicated than testing eggs. I am told that the [two sides] are arguing about how to test chickens. Should the test focus only on chicken meat? Or should it include skin, internal organs and droppings, too? They are still arguing about this.'
Including melamine in inspection certificates for live chickens would be the next step, once the two sides had reached an agreement on how to test live chickens, Mr Tsui said.
