The ban was imposed on March 6 after authorities confirmed the first human bird flu fatality in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong which neighbours Hong Kong.

Officials said 20,000 Chinese chickens, brought in over the weekend, had been cleared for sale.

They denied that a handful of the chickens which had arrived dead were suspected to have the deadly H5N1 virus, which has killed more than 100 people worldwide since late 2003.

"When you transport a large number of chickens over long distances some of them die of stress," a spokesman for the agriculture department said.

"Checks were carried out on two sides and everything is okay," he said.

Hong Kongers have traditionally bought chickens live and had them slaughtered, usually at the market, just prior to cooking.

The practice has been criticised for bringing people in close contact with poultry and has been blamed for aiding the spread of H5N1, which is believed to pass to humans through bird faeces and viscera.

The government has controversially decided to ban the sale of live chickens at such "wet markets" and open a central slaughtering centre to reduce public contact with birds.

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 17 birds have tested positive for the disease in recent weeks.