RIYADH, 27 January 2004 — Saudi Arabia has not yet banned imports of Thai chicken and poultry products, Arab News has learned, despite confirmation from Bangkok that the country is suffering from an outbreak of deadly bird flu. The disease is currently ravaging a number of Far Eastern nations and is now moving westwards. Pakistan is the latest country to be affected.
Thailand is the world’s fifth largest exporter of poultry. Bans have been imposed on Thai poultry by several countries, including the European Union. It banned them on Friday.
The Thai Embassy in Riyadh says that it has “received no official communication from the Saudi government” about any import ban of Thai poultry, said Mohammed Lutfi, second secretary at the embassy. However, he added that imports of Thai poultry are relatively small, and that they account for only a fraction of Saudi-Thai trade, which exceeds SR2 billion annually.
Asked about the Kingdom’s measures to stop possible transmission of bird flu to the Gulf region, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, contacted by Arab News, were unable to comment on the subject.
The Saudi Ministry of Agriculture had previously banned the importation of live birds from the US. The ban, effective from Nov. 5, 2003, came after a World Animal Health Organization report last April noting the spread of the West Nile Fever in 45 states of the US, where 6,657 cases have been recorded including human infection and death of 139 individuals.”
In March last year the Kingdom temporarily banned the import of chicken products from the EU after the discovery of suspected cases of bird flu in Europe.
Saudi Arabia imports some 120,000 tons of chicken products annually from the EU, valued at $133 million.
Arab News spoke to three major supermarket chains in Jeddah, which all said that as far as they knew no poultry from the Far East is imported and sold in the Kingdom.
“Over 90 percent of the frozen chicken sold in our markets is domestic in origin; all the fresh poultry that is sold to the consumer is 100 percent Saudi,” said Abdullah, who has been a butcher in the Kingdom for the last 14 years.
“Yes the Kingdom does import some poultry internationally, but its origin has always been Brazil or France and, more recently, America but a ban has been put in place regarding that.”
Referring to the outbreak of the disease and its adverse impact on trade, Thai diplomat Lutfi said that wild birds migrating to Thailand from other countries were thought to have spread the virus. Its appearance in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam could set off an epidemic worse than SARS according to the World Health Organization.
The poultry sector represents a substantial part of Thailand’s agricultural economy. The industry employing 600,00 people and is worth $800 million a year. Japan is the largest importer of Thai poultry.
