Yantai, a coastal city in east China's Shandong Province, has resumed poultry export to Japan, following a Japanese decision made on August 7 to partially lift its import ban on Chinese chicken, turkey and fowl eggs.

Some 260 tons of chicken meat, packed in 16 containers, have passed the quarantine tests of the Japanese ministry of agriculture, forestry and fisheries before being exported to Japan, said sources from a local trading company.

"This is the first poultry shipment since Japan's lift of the ban," said a local trade official.

The import ban, based solely on a test result from the Republic of Korea, has led to two months' suspension of poultry trade between China and Japan, causing tremendous losses for the Chinese poultry industry.

Major Yantai-based food processing enterprises, with their first-class facilities and management systems, have guaranteed quality poultry products for export, said the trade official.

(Xinhua News Agency 09/17/2001)