The Department of Agriculture (DA) said it has lifted the import bans on meat and poultry products from Germany and Belgium, respectively, to restore the Philippines’ access to more meat sources in Europe.
The DA announced on Thursday it has lifted the ban on the importation of all meat commodities, products and by-products from Germany, which can be derived from animals previously deemed susceptible to foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). It also announced lifting the import ban on poultry products from Belgium.
The agency said the lifting of the import bans was made in two separate memorandum orders signed by Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. on Monday, June 9, but was only made public on Thursday, June 12.
The DA said the import ban on meat products from Germany was lifted after the European nation declared that all livestock within its territory have become free of FMD, a highly contagious viral infection that could affect cloven-hoofed livestock.
The agency first imposed the temporary ban last February, shortly after Germany confirmed cases of FMD in domestic buffaloes in Hoppegarten, located in the district of Märkisch-Oderland, Brandenburg.
FMD primarily affects cattle but can also infect pigs, goats, sheep, and other cloven-hoofed animals, the DA explained.
The disease, while rarely transmissible to humans, can lead to high mortality rates, especially among young livestock, apart from posing serious economic risks to the local agriculture sector, the DA said.
Since Germany has become FMD-free, the risk of contamination from importing the meat from FMD-susceptible animals, their products, and by-products “is negligible,” Tiu Laurel was quoted as saying in the DA statement.
Based on data from the Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), Germany provided the Philippines with 3,177,528 kilograms of imported beef in 2024, equivalent to 1.6 percent of the country’s total beef imports last year, at 203,898,640 kg.
Meanwhile, the DA also lifted the temporary ban on the importation of domestic and wild birds, as well as poultry products from Belgium, following confirmation that the recent avian flu outbreak in the European country has been fully contained.
The import ban was originally imposed last April due to an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Sint-Niklaas, Oost-Vlaanderen, as a precautionary measure to protect local poultry industries from potential viral transmission.
Tiu Laurel said he removed the import ban after Belgian veterinary authorities formally declared the HPAI outbreak contained and resolved, with no new bird flu cases reported after February 28.
“Belgium is now free from HPAI and the risk of contamination from importing domestic and wild birds and their products, including poultry meat, day-old chicks, eggs and semen is negligible,” he said.
The BAI data showed that as of the end of 2024, Belgium exported a total of 5,248,644 kg of chicken meat to the Philippines, equivalent to 1.1 percent of the country’s total volume of chicken imports for the period at 472,211,452 kg.
