Hong Kong will resume the import of day-old chicken from Chinese mainland starting Friday, but will keep the import cap of 20,000 live chickens a day unchanged.

The supply of day-old chicks from neighboring Guangdong Province to Hong Kong would be resumed Friday, a spokesman for Hong Kong Health, Welfare and Food Bureau said Tuesday.

Except that a few dead wild birds' bodies were found with the H5N1 bird flu virus, Hong Kong has no outbreak of avian influenza, nor record of human infection.

However, in a bid to prevent the epidemic, the government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) suspended chicken imports from the mainland on March 5, when a case of human infection of the bird flu virus was reported in the southern province of Guangdong.

The ban on live chicken imports was lifted three weeks later, but the ban on day-old chicken imports was maintained and daily imports of live chicken have been ceiled at 20,000 chickens per day.

Despite sporadic demonstrations of local poultry industry asking for imports, the HKSAR government has kept the imports cap unchanged so as to better manage local prevention and surveillance system against bird flu outbreak.

The government also decided to freeze the rental of a poultry market and planned to refund new rentals that had paid but had to cancel the deal.

The efforts are aimed at keeping Hong Kong's daily live chicken population under 20,000 so as to cut down the risk of bird flu outbreak.

(Xinhua News Agency April 26, 2006)