Press Releases
Package for voluntary surrender of live poultry retail licences or tenancies proposed
The Government today (May 25) proposed an ex-gratia payment to live poultry retailers who choose to stop live poultry trading permanently on a voluntary basis.
On the proposed package, a Health, Welfare and Food Bureau spokesman said it aimed at substantially reducing the number of retail outlets, in particular the very small ones that might not be able to incorporate the various improvement measures because of physical constraints.
"The proposed formula is based on 27 months' average rental of live poultry stalls at Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) markets drawing reference from the ex-gratia payment for the compulsory resumption of the Central Market; but enhanced by an additional 12 months rental taking into account that the retailer will not be allowed to re-establish another live poultry stall elsewhere. Therefore, the total payout is 39 months' average rental of the stalls.
"The ex-gratia payment for smaller-sized outlets will be further enhanced to encourage them to surrender their licences or tenancies - an additional 25% for stalls up to 15 square metres (91 stalls) and 10% for those with an area over 15 to 25 square metres (425 stalls).
"A ceiling has been set for the large-sized outlets as they should be capable of implementing the various improvement measures for separating customers from live poultry," the spokesman said.
At present, there are 814 live poultry retail stalls in Hong Kong.
The Government would also provide loans up to $50,000 or 40% of the refurbishment costs, whichever is less, on an unsecured basis to live poultry retailers, who choose to continue operation, to make investment in upgrading their stalls to meet the new public health requirements.
Retraining and financial assistance would be provided to live poultry retail workers who would become unemployed as a result of their employers ceasing operation under the proposed voluntary package.
Up to six weeks of retraining courses would be offered to those affected workers, with a view to assisting them find employment in another sector. Each worker taking full-time courses could receive up to $6,000 during the six-week retraining period.
Affected workers who remained unemployed after the six-week retraining period would each be provided a one-off grant of $10,000 to help them meet their financial needs.
The total amount of funding required for the proposed scheme is estimated to be about $239 million.
The spokesman said the proposed package was in line with the Government's policy to minimise health risk at the wet markets.
He said past experience had shown that the principal mode of transmission of the avian influenza virus from poultry to human was through contact with live poultry or their faeces, and the most effective way to minimise the health risk posed by avian influenza was to reduce as much as possible the contact between human and live poultry.
"As a medium-term measure, there is a need to improve the design and layout of live poultry stalls by enlarging the size of individual stalls in retail markets in order to implement our policy objective of separating customers from live poultry.
"This will require a significant reduction in the number of live poultry stalls in retail markets to enable us to improve the health standard by reconfiguring the remaining live poultry stalls," he added.
FEHD officials will meet retailers soon to explain the package and listen to the retailers' views.
To help tide the trade over their hardship, the spokesman said the Government had released two packages of relief measures since February to assist local live poultry traders directly affected by the outbreak of avian influenza in the region.
On February 25, the Government released a rental waiver of three months to live poultry operators in the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department's (AFCD) wholesale markets and public markets. Ex-gratia payment of $10,000 was also issued to fresh provision shops with endorsement to sell live poultry in private premises. The estimated payout was about $8.4 million.
On March 26, the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council endorsed the Government's proposal to issue ex-gratia payment amounted to about $41.6 million to live poultry retailers, wholesalers, transporters and farmers.
As for the query on the Government's policy on importation of day-old-chicks from the Mainland, the spokesman stressed that the Government had not restricted the importation of day-old-chicks.
He added that the bureau, AFCD and FEHD had been in close contact with the Mainland authorities on the early resumption of importation of day-old chicks as well as other land-based poultry, such as pigeons, chukar, guinea fowl, pheasant and silky fowl, to Hong Kong.
Ends/Tuesday, May 25, 2004
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