Japan Seeks to Lift Cooked Poultry Import Bans

TOKYO - Feb 6/04 - SNS -- Japanese agriculture department officials have opened talks with China and Thailand to allow trade in cooked chicken products to resume.

Pressure is building within Japan for a resolution to the import bans on numerous countries and products because they have created fundamental shortages of meat products in the country and soaring wholesale and retail prices.

Early last year, beef imports were banned from Canada and in December from the United States. In recent weeks chicken imports have been banned from most southeast Asian countries because of outbreaks of avian influenza, which cannot be transferred to humans from cooked meat.

Japanese government officials note meat from an infected bird is safe to eat if it is cooked at a temperature of 70 degrees Celcius for at least one minute. "But the cooked meat can be infected with the virus again if the meat-processing facility is not very clean," government officials told reports for the Japan Times.

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