China may lift ban on N.Z. animal imports

Press, 19 August 1982, Page 22

China may lift ban on N.Z. animal imports

From I

BRUCE ROSCOE,

in Peking

The ban China now imposes on the importation of all live animals from New Zealand because it believes New Zealand animals are diseased, may soon be lifted. According to China's Ministry of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, two types of disease, bovine tracheitis and nucosal disease, were discovered in New Zealand cattle in 1980, the first year New Zealand supplied sheep and dairy cattle to China.

New Zealand hopes to sell a number of Friesian bulls for cross-breeding at a pilot pasture farm set up by New Zealand advisers in the Guangxi autonomous region. The potential for sales is still unknown, but it is described as reasonable. Further potential is thought to exist in Inner Mongolia,

which is believed to want more sheep. A Chinese official of the Animal Husbandry Bureau, a body within the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry. and Fisheries, said veterinary departments in China were still discussing the dispute. “If all goes smoothly, it will be possible for China to import animals from New Zealand," he said. A New Zealand trade commissioner in Peking said that test data were being presented to Chinese officials which showed that New Zealand animals were not diseased.

He said he hoped the disagreement, which resulted from a “technical difference of opinion," would be resolved before the seventh China-New Zealand ' joint trade committee meeting opens in Peking on September 7.