A woman cleans a smart layer chicken farm in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu Province on Feburary 17. Photo: VCG

The US recognizes China's poultry products inspection systems - the first time since China proposed to export to the US in 2004 - the US Federal Register reported, which a Chinese expert said is a positive move toward reaching a trade deal between the two countries, and such a measure also shows that the two governments are more pragmatic in trade negotiations.

In a statement, the US Federal Register said Friday that the US has confirmed the equivalence of poultry products inspection systems between the two countries, marking China, after Canada, Mexico, Chile and other countries, as another eligible country to export domestic-material-cooked poultry to the US.

China welcomes the US measure on poultry products, the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) said. Citing a spokesperson from the GACC, Xinhua News Agency said that "the confirmation by the US authority will have positive effects on China's export of poultry products to the US.

The US move could lower the cost of China's export of such products to the US, and promotes free trade between the two countries, Li Guoxiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"Food safety in the US is very strict, and the US used to use food standards to increase the cost of importing such products to create trade barriers for trade protectionism, Li said, adding that recognizing China's inspection system of such products means the US is removing the trade barriers in this field.

In 2004, China proposed the export of poultry products to the US, but Washington refused to import on the grounds that China's regulatory system is not equivalent to the US and proposed the risk of bird flu.

Since then, China has urged the US to comply with the relevant provisions of the World Organization for Animal Health while providing the detailed materials of China's poultry products supervision system to the US for evaluation.

In 2016, the US confirmed that China's regulatory system for the export of poultry is equivalent to that of the US, allowing China to export poultry made of raw materials from approved countries to the US. But it did not allow the import of poultry products made of Chinese domestic raw materials.