News says China stops importing American chicken products

July 1 Afternoon news, according to foreign media reports, the U.S. Egg Export Association chairman Sumner Tuesday revealed that China will stop the import of U.S. chicken products from July 1, which will lead to the United States lost hundreds of millions of of dollars in revenue. Sumner said the association learned about China's moves from U.S. exporters and was informed by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He also said that in China's imports of chicken products in the U.S. market share of 70%, the annual U.S. exports to China is about 800,000 tons. The association expects exports to China to reach 394,000 tonnes in the second half of 2009.　　If China does not resume imports, U.S. chicken exporters will lose about $370 million in the next 6 months.　　Sumner also pointed out that there may be many factors prompting China to take these actions, one of the main factors seems to be the mention in a US House bill to prevent China from exporting processed chicken products to the US. It is reported that the U.S. Congress of the 2008 Fiscal Year Spending Act prohibits the U.S. Department of Agriculture imports of Chinese processed chicken products, the ban will continue to the 2009 fiscal year. and the House's 2010-year appropriation bill includes the same rules, extending the ban to the next year. A USDA rule initially wanted to allow China to buy American chickens for processing and return the finished product to the United States. But lawmakers such as Connecticut State Democrat De Lauro said they objected to the rule because of concerns about food safety and prevented USDA from allowing Chinese chicken imports.　　In a recent statement, De Lauro said that although USDA believes China's food safety system is comparable to that of the United States, the process of making this decision is flawed and puts industry interests above public health. In this regard, plain, an agricultural economist at the University of Missouri, argues that China's ban on imports of U.S. chicken products is bad for pork prices. The ban means a decline in the number of poultry exports, leading to more products entering the domestic market, which may lead to a decline in U.S. pork prices. But it is too early to estimate how much the Chinese ban would affect U.S. pork prices, and it lacks enough information. (Snow Ting)