The threat of bird flu virus in Asia would make the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) run out of live poultry stock in a few days, because of the SAR's heavy dependence on imports.

Leong Meng Lei, chairman of the Macao Chamber of Poultry Commerce, said Monday that all of Macao's 98 live poultry retailers will run out of their stocks in the next three to four days.

According to a market inspection made by the Macao Civil and Municipal Affairs Bureau, only some 20,000 heads of poultry were left in stock in the city, most of which have been ordered by hotels and restaurants. Live poultry will soon disappear on the market.

Birds, mainly chicken, duck and geese are popular on dinner tables of Guangdong-style cuisine in Macao, Hong Kong and Guangdong province. Some restaurants selling the culinary flavor in Macao saw their business plummeting by half over last week.

The rampant bird flu situation in Asia has also driven up prices of eggs in Macao, which have more than doubled since Saturday. The price increased from 0.5 patacas (US$0.06) to 1.2 patacas (US$0.15) per egg over the weekend.

Before the outbreak of the bird flu in the region, Macao usually imported around 250,000 eggs every day, and the city's "egg reserves" can normally sustain for four to five days of supply, according to Tong Kin Mao, president of the Macao Egg Traders Association.

"We will try to import more eggs from the United States and South Africa through Hong Kong to supply the local market," Tong said.

Portuguese egg tarts are one of Macao's top culinary tourist attractions. Macao's largest Portuguese newspaper Ponto Final said Monday that several bakeries and cake shops would start to use foreign eggs later this week.

(Xinhua News Agency February 2, 2004)