Avian influenza (illustration).
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Tristan Reynaud / SIPA
China announced on Wednesday that it was suspending its imports of French poultry, due to the avian flu epizootic in France.
The measure was announced by Customs and the Ministry of Agriculture in a statement.
China takes the decision to "defend the safety of the country's livestock and prevent the spread of the epidemic," the document said.
The press release cites poultry and poultry products, such as foie gras.
Integrate the concept of zoning in China
Imports had already been suspended since the appearance of the bird flu virus in November in France.
This announcement formalizes things.
Preventive slaughter has already involved hundreds of thousands of farm animals.
China is not a big importer of French poultry.
She mainly buys chicken and foie gras.
The day before this announcement, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire and Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua spoke by telephone.
According to Bercy, the two ministers "agreed to speed up cooperation in the agricultural sector, in particular on the key issue of zoning, on which an agreement should be able to be found in the coming weeks".
Paris wants Beijing to recognize this concept of zoning, which consists of banning exports in the event of an epidemic only for the affected areas and not for the whole country.
Negotiations with China were originally about pork, but Paris wants to include poultry in the negotiations.
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