Washington - The U.S. poultry industry is taking steps to maintain broiler meat sales to Hong Kong in the face of a deadly flu virus carried by live chickens that has caused at least four deaths there, industry aides said Monday.
"We've noticed a real downturn in total poultry consumption" in Hong Kong as word of the H5N1 virus has spread among consumers, Jim Sumner, president of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, said.
Although the problem is with live chickens, most of which are imported from China, there has been a consumer backlash against all poultry products, he said.
A number of Hong Kong supermarkets have called the export council's Hong Kong office requesting signs "to show they import frozen poultry and eggs from the United States," where the disease is not present, he said.
In recent days, the Hong Kong government has taken a number of dramatic steps to halt the "bird flu."
First, it banned live chicken imports from China. Then on Sunday, government workers began slaughtering the city's estimated 1.3 million live chickens and additional numbers of ducks, geese, quail, partridges, pigeons and other birds.
In response to the slump in Hong Kong consumer demand, Sumner said the export council is considering running an ad campaign beginning next week to reassure Hong Kong consumers about the safety of frozen U.S. poultry products.
"We don't want it to appear that we're capitalizing on someone else's misfortune," but the group wants Hong Kong consumers to know that U.S poultry products are safe, he said.
A USDA analyst who asked not to be identified said it's still too early to tell if Hong Kong's decision to slaughter its poultry flocks will have much affect on U.S. exports.
USDA's most recent forecast put Hong Kong broiler consumption at only 68,000 tonnes (ready-to-cook equivalent) in 1998, which is "just a drop in the bucket" compared to 6.2 million tonnes for Mainland China, the analyst said.
Hong Kong's two-way poultry trade with China also complicates the picture, the analyst said.
Before the flu problem, USDA forecast Hong Kong to import 957,000 tonnes (ready-to-cook equivalent) of broiler meat in 1998, up from an estimated 840,000 tonnes in 1997.
But about 65 percent of the Hong Kong's broiler meat imports are "transhipped" to China.
Since Hong Kong has banned live chicken shipments from China, more of those birds will be consumed in China which could reduce Chinese import demand, the analyst said.
The strong U.S. dollar and the sharp drop in the value of several Asian currencies have also affected trade.
Sales to Hong Kong and China, which together account for about 25 percent of U.S. poultry exports, were down about 15 percent in the first 10 months of 1997, the analyst said.
Meanwhile, the drop in Thailand's currency has made its poultry exports more competitive, the analyst said.
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