China To Hold Talks On Importing Raw Bird Nests From Malaysia

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia), May 20 (Bernama) -- Bird nests entrepreneurs in the country who want to export raw swiftlet nests unprocessed (raw, uncleaned) to China may get their hopes realised soon when China begins discussions on this. Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said his Chinese counterpart had agreed to start a discussion concerning this during their recent meeting. "Earlier, they did not want to talk about unprocessed nests, but now they have agreed. We are sending our officials to discuss this," he told reporters after the ministry's monthly gathering here Monday. The restrictions were imposed as a result of China's negative media reports about the quality of the bird nests imported from Malaysia. In another development, Ismail Sabri said Malaysia was looking at several countries as new sources for the import of meat including Sudan and Somalia, rather than relying on four countries namely India, Australia, Thailand and New Zealand at the moment. He said at the moment the meat supply is adequate but the decision was being taken to reduce dependence on any country, more so when there was talk that India will reduce their exports in the future. "Cambodia is also a new source and officials of the National Farmers Organisation (Nafas) are there to make a selection of live cattle to be brought into Malaysia. "We'll see if we get a new market with better price and quality, we will cut imports from India," he said. --BERNAMA