Yesterday (December 8th) the poultry product and people's health symposium was held in Guangzhou. As part of the symposium, a chicken banquet was organized despite the outbreak of bird flu in China.

Deputy Secretary of Guangdong CPC Committee Ou Guangyuan and Vice Guangdong Governor Li Ronggen attended the banquet. Ou was the first one who ate the chicken. This gesture was to encourage Guangdong citizens to buy chicken and to boost Guangdong's dull poultry market.

He commented that as long as citizens are careful and adhere to the safety precautions when cooking chicken, the chicken will be safe to be consumed. He added that Guangdong had allocated over 60 million RMB to subsidize the province's poultry farmers to conduct chicken bird flu immunity work.

The province's poultry farmers are suffering from a massive bird-flu-induced downturn in business, with industry losses amounting to 1 billion yuan (US$121m) in November. Guangdong provincial agriculture department also said sales of poultry had plummeted by 20 to 40 percent in Guangdong since October, when bird flu reports first surfaced in other parts of the country.

Editor: Wing