Hong Kong will soon lift a ban on the import of live poultry and other birds from China's neighbouring Guangdong province, three weeks after a man died of bird flu in the infected region.

Carrie Yau, Permanent Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, said imports would resume on March 26, three weeks after the first human bird flu death in the province.

Yau said the decision was made after her team visited farms in Guangdong and found no new human cases and no outbreak of bird flu there. No decision has yet been made on the lifting of an import ban on day-old chicks, she said.

Yau said imports of live chickens from China to Hong Kong would be capped at 20,000 a day when the ban is lifted, down from the previous 30,000.

The arrangement will be reviewed in mid-April and flexibility will apply during festive periods.

Ten people have died in mainland China of bird flu since 2003.

Hong Kong was the scene of the world's first reported major bird flu outbreak among humans in 1997, when six people died. The government slaughtered all the city's 1.5 million poultry to contain the outbreak.

The last human cases in the city were in 2003, when two people were infected and one died. But 16 birds have tested positive for the disease in recent weeks.