China has agreed to lift a bird flu-related ban on United States imports of poultry products from six states but remains closed to all imports of US beef, American trade officials said yesterday.

The breakthrough on poultry products, as well as an agreement to convene in-depth technical talks on the impasse over beef, was announced at the end of one-day high-level US-China talks at the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, California.

China also agreed to adhere to a more streamlined process by which US makers of medical devices obtain approval for imports of their products to China and to step up efforts to prevent contamination of its own pharmaceutical exports, US officials said.

The two sides further pledged closer cooperation on measures to combat piracy of intellectual property.

The lifting of restrictions on US poultry imports from six states (New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, West Virginia, Rhode Island and Nebraska) takes effect immediately, said US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer.

But the ban will remain in place for now against poultry products from two other states - Arkansas and Virginia. For some of those states, China's poultry import ban has been in effect for years.

China imposed the bans in states where a "low-pathogenic" strain of avian influenza, or bird flu, was detected.

The so-called "low-path" bird flu strains are widely seen as posing no threat to public health because they cannot be transmitted to humans, US officials said.

The US exported US$600 million in poultry products to China during the past year.

(Shanghai Daily September 18, 2008)