Bangkok, August 21 :

Some 500 Thai farmers protested outside European missions Monday in Bangkok to urge the EU not to change its tariffs on Thai chicken as the industry recovers from international bird flu scares.

Waving Thai flags and carrying a banner that read ‘Thai chicken under attack’, the farmers delivered letters to the delegation of the European Commission as well as the Belgian, British, Danish, Dutch, French and German embassies.

The letter urged the European Union not to follow through with proposed changes to its import duty regime on poultry products, including cooked chicken. Thailand is the biggest exporter of cooked chicken products to the EU.

Under the new system, the EU said it would introduce quotas for cooked chicken, salted chicken and turkey.

Exports falling within the quotas would be taxed at the existing rates, but exports beyond that level would be taxed at a rate of $130.80 per 100 kilos, the European Commission’s delegation said in a statement.

The delegation said talks would be held next month with exporters to determine the quotas. “Our aim is to streamline the system of EU tariff levels for these products. The changes will not affect Thailand’s traditional export volumes,” said Jean-Jacques Bouflet, the delegation’s trade counselor.

“Due to a considerable export surge in recent years from a number of countries including Thailand, we need to control future expansion,” he said in a statement.

Thai farmers fear the new system will damage the country’s chicken industry just as it is rebounding from international bans on raw Thai poultry over fears of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.

“The plan would seriously affect Thai farmers who are heavily in debt from borrowing money from banks to upgrade their farms,” said Anan Sirimongkolkasem, president of the Thai Broiler Processing Exporters Association, one of 11 groups in the protest.

“If the EU market were closed, a huge number of farmers would be forced out of business,” he said.

To cope with the bans, the industry has shifted from exporting raw poultry to cooked products, which pose no bird flu risk and are not banned.

The EU says that since 2003, Thai exports of cooked chicken to the EU have jumped by 74 per cent to 106,503 tonnes worth some $340.9 million. Exports are expected to reach 130,000 tonnes this year.