"The Ministry of Agriculture Food and Forestry of Japan directed the new agricultural attaché in Manila to lift the suspension on the export of chicken products from the Philippines," said Agriculture Secretary Domingo F. Panganiban.
"With the lifting of the ban, we expect negotiations between local poultry processors and their Japanese buyers to resume as early as June,"said Panganiban.
Panganiban said the MAFF is apparently satisfied with the submission of required documents detailing the Bureau of Animal Industry’s preparedness to mobilize an anti-avian influenza program if and when the dreaded outbreak occurs.
The Philippine government has been repeatedly asking the Japanese government to lift the ban which was imposed July of last year.
The lifting of the ban is a big boost to efforts by local poultry processors to penetrate the lucrative Japanese market.
Before Thailand’s poultry farms were devastated by the H5N1 bird-flu strain, it supplied 60 percent of the "yakitori" chicken market in Japan. Brazil has replaced Thailand in this particular market.
The Philippines is one of the few remaining countries in the region that has not been affected by the dreaded bird flu virus. Prior to the ban, several Japanese trading houses such as Marubeni Corp. were scouting for suppliers from major poultry integrators such as San Miguel Foods Inc., Swift Foods Inc. and Tyson Agro-Ventures Inc.
Japan took its time in reviewing documents submitted by the BAI, indicating its reluctance to reopen its market for processed chicken which was interrupted last year because of a suspected incidence of a bird flu virus in a small poultry farm in Calumpit, Bulacan.
The Philippines which voluntarily halted exports of chicken to Japan after the Calumpit incident, was subsequently declared as bird-flu free by the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL), the regional reference laboratory for AI (avian influenza) of the Paris-based Office International des Epizooties or OIE, which is a unit under the World Health Organization for Animal Health and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).