Chinese poultry is Europe's 'cup of tea' after producers bolster quality controls.

Chinese poultry will soon appear on European dinner tables again under a European Union (EU) decision to lift a six-year import ban imposed because of an outbreak of bird flu.

The European Commission (EC) has released a list of nine Chinese companies, all in the eastern Shandong province, that were approved to export heat-treated poultry meat products to the EU.

"The EU reopened its markets to Shandong companies after four years of scrutiny. It is good news for Chinese producers and especially farmers," said an official with the Shandong provincial department of foreign trade.

The same official estimated that China's annual exports of heat-treated poultry products to the EU could reach 100,000 tons worth $1 billion. The EU is a major market for poultry consumption, with annual imports totaling 700,000 tons.

EC officials had inspected poultry product producers in Shandong, Shanghai and the northeastern during the past four years.

"Several inspection missions carried out by the Commission's services in China have shown that the competent authorities in China, in particular in the Province of Shandong, are sufficiently well structured to deal with the animal health status of poultry," reads an EC decision dated July 30.

An official with the Shandong bureau of entry-exit inspection and quarantine said authorities there had made strenuous efforts to regain access to the European Union market, collecting EU regulations, laws and requirements that involve poultry product imports, translating them into Chinese so as to guide companies in breeding, slaughter and heat treatment--and avoiding proscribed drugs.

"Now we can detect a drop of nitrofuran in a full swimming pool," said quality control manager Lu Yongsheng of Xinchang Meat, one of the nine Shandong companies. Lu's company invested heavily to upgrade detection instruments. Xinchang puts a code on every package of its products to ensure traceability in case of any problems, and sends all drugs to national labs for examination keeping samples for at least three years.

Shandong exported $430 million worth of poultry meat last year, accounting for half of the national total; and, at $330 million, 60% of the country's heat-treated poultry exports. China had a trade deficit of $7.57 billion in agricultural products in the first five months of this year, 14.3 times greater than a year earlier. That may reflect widely publicized quality problems in other categories.