More than 210 tons of frozen chicken products from bird flu-hit
areas of the United States were destroyed in Guangzhou's Panyu
District on Wednesday. The products were mainly chickens' feet,
legs and wings.
According to an official from the Anti-smuggling Office of the
district government, they had been produced in areas of the US that
had been affected by bird flu between 2002 and early this year.
The products, enough to fill 26 trucks, were seized as they were
being smuggled into the mainland via Guangdong and Hong Kong waters
this year, an anonymous official told China Daily on
Thursday.
Chicken is a popular food in Guangdong,
Hong Kong and Macao, particularly during the?
Spring Festival?and other major festivals.
The government banned the import of chicken products from bird
flu-hit countries at the beginning of the year to prevent it from
reentering the mainland.
According to Huang Shanqun, vice director of Gongbei Custom's
Anti-smuggling Bureau, more than 300 tons of smuggled chicken
products are seized every day in Zhuhai City.
Huang said the price of frozen chicken feet is around 4,000 yuan
(US$483) per ton in Hong Kong. However, if these frozen chicken
feet are smuggled onto the mainland they can be sold for as much as
9,000 yuan (US$1,087) per ton.
Profits are as much as five times higher than that from
smuggling oil, encouraging many oil smugglers to switch to frozen
chicken products.??
The ban imposed because of bird flu resulted in a 200,000
ton-gap between supply and demand in China, providing a huge
opportunity to smugglers.
Many suppliers in Hong Kong, which acts as a transfer station
for frozen imports to China, have been left overstocked after the
ban, guaranteeing smugglers a good supply source.
It is hard to know the quantity of frozen chicken products
smuggled to the mainland, but customs cases and the amount of
products seized from May to June were up to six times that in the
first four months of the year.
(China Daily, China.org.cn December 3, 2004)