Japan will hold negotiations with China and Thailand on resuming imports of their cooked chicken products, officials of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said Thursday.

The move is good news for the Japanese restaurant industry and for makers of frozen food, which have been hit by an import ban imposed in light of the avian flu outbreak in Asia.

Chinese and Thai products accounted for 97.7 percent of the 224,000 tons of cooked chicken products imported by Japan in fiscal 2002.

"We will send a fact-finding mission to both countries to study carefully how (the bird flu outbreak) occurred and what is the current situation," said Mamoru Ishihara, vice minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.

According to the ministry, the Chinese government sent a written request to the Japanese Embassy on Tuesday, asking that Japan resume imports of heat-treated poultry products.

The Thai government followed suit Thursday.

Before complying with the request, Japan must strike an accord with the two countries on heating procedures and hygienic management at local chicken products factories.

It must then dispatch experts to check on these procedures, the officials said.

An official said that chicken, even if infected with the avian flu virus, can be safe if the meat is cooked at a temperature of 70 C for a minimum of 1 minute.

"But the cooked meat can be infected with the virus again if the meat-processing facility is not very clean," he added. Requests for an import resumption have also been filed by some Japanese food makers that have been hit by the avian flu outbreak in countries that supply chicken to Japan.