US meat companies condemn Chinese poultry ban

Companies within the U.S. meat sector recently asked Congress to remove a ban on Chinese poultry imports, according to a news report.
A coalition of meat companies, such as Tyson Foods, Cargill, Sanderson Farms, Pilgrim's Pride and Hormel Foods, and trade groups testified that U.S. law allows all the other 152 countries belonging to the World Trade Organization to apply to export meat to the U.S., and questioned the fairness of this to China.
China opened a WTO complaint regarding the ban, and earlier responded by halting the issuing of import permits for the U.S., worth nearly $700 million per year.
The ban initially was put into place because of safety and health risk concerns.