China airs plans to cope with bird flu
(AP)
Updated: 2005-11-18 00:51

Late Wednesday, the government announced it was cutting taxes and fees for poultry-related businesses to help them weather the crisis, as authorities cull tens of millions of birds as they try to halt the spread of bird flu.

That announcement came amid news confirming China's first human cases of bird flu in a 9-year old boy in central China's Hunan province, who survived, and in a 24-year-old poultry worker, who died in the eastern province of Anhui, hundreds of miles from Shanghai. The boy's 12-year-old sister died of pneumonia and is listed as a suspected case.

At a meeting of the State Council, or Cabinet, led by Premier Wen Jiabao, poultry processing and marketing businesses were ordered exempt from 2005 corporate taxes. They will get value-added tax rebates and export tax rebates, and breaks on land use, real estate and vehicle taxes, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Banks, meanwhile, were ordered to relax terms on loan payments and poultry workers who lose their jobs are to get unemployment insurance or subsistence allowances, the Xinhua report said.

The government earlier set aside 2 billion yuan, or $250 million, to finance its campaign against the disease, which includes vaccinating all domestic fowl and compensating farmers for their losses. According to state media reports, farmers are due to get between 10 yuan to 30 yuan ($1.23) to 30 yuan ($3.70) for each bird lost to culling or disease.

By boosting compensation and other assistance to farmers, authorities apparently hope to prevent them from concealing bird flu outbreaks. So far, 11 outbreaks have been confirmed among poultry in virtually every region of the country.

Experts say there is no risk of contracting bird flu from well-cooked chicken or eggs, but consumers have grown increasingly wary.

Managers of Shanghai's 461 retail poultry markets and three wholesale markets, meanwhile, are trying to persuade the public that all chickens sold in the city come from Shanghai or neighboring Jiangsu province, neither of which have reported any recent outbreaks of bird flu.

All retail and wholesale markets are being disinfected several times a day, with all chickens sold required to have three certificates proving the are free of bird flu, have been through quarantine and were transported on trucks that have been properly disinfected, Wang said.

During a series of bird flu outbreaks 2004, about one-fifth of household poultry farmers quit and production stagnated. Output of poultry and eggs had been forecast to recover somewhat this year, rising to 11 million tons of broilers and more than 30 million tons of eggs, according to industry estimates.