China bans UK poultry imports

China on Wednesday became the latest country to ban all poultry products from the UK following the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu on a Suffolk turkey farm.

Britain is set to lose millions of pounds worth of exports as the list of countries – which includes Ireland, Russia, Hong Kong, South Africa, South Korea and Japan – temporarily banning British poultry grows.

“In accordance with the law of China, all direct and indirect imports of poultry and poultry-related products will be banned,” said the Chinese embassy in London.

Poultry and poultry-related products sent from Britain to China after January 13 would be “returned or destroyed”, the embassy said. Those imported before that date will be tested for avian flu.

China, one of the top 20 importers of UK poultry products, imported 1,964 tonnes of poultry meat and offal from the UK between January and November 2006, according to figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The UK exports 270,000 tonnes of poultry meat annually, worth £300m, according to the British Poultry Council.

The Food Standards Agency on Wednesday said that producer Bernard Matthews had agreed temporarily to stop supplying retailers with frozen products containing Hungarian meat.

It said: “There is a remote possibility that some of the meat may have come from a restricted zone in Hungary, which would make it illegal to go into the food chain.”

The FSA said the meat would be released on to the market once the agency had received confirmation from Hungarian authorities that it had not come from restricted zones.

Bernard Matthews declined to provide information on how much meat was affected by the decision. It said it would resume “normal supply” on Thursday.

The FSA is continuing to investigate whether any infected meat sold by Bernard Matthews has entered the UK food chain.

The genetic strain of bird flu that infected a Suffolk farm earlier this month was “essentially identical” to the virus found in Hungary in January, British veterinary experts confirmed this week.

They said that the H5N1 virus must have come directly from Hungary, though the exact means of transmission remains uncertain.