Taipei - Taiwan had a bumper year in frozen duck exports in 2007, as it was the only country in Southeast Asia spared by bird flu, the Central News Agency (CNA) said Saturday.

Quoting Council of Agriculture (COA) figures, it said Taiwan held on to its traditional frozen duck export markets and opened some new.

Taiwan in 2007 raised 11 million ducks with production value of six billion Taiwan dollars (about 193 million US dollars), out of which, revenues from export totaled 800 million dollars (26 million US.)

In an interview with CNA, Lin Chih-yuan, deputy manager of the Ger Chuan Foods Inc, a leading duck meat exporter, said: "Even Japan, which has high hygiene standards for imported meat, welcomes Taiwan duck meat.

"In 2007, Taiwan sold 5,000 tons of duck meat to Japan to make Beijing duck."

Taiwan had also succeeded in entering the South Korean market in 2007, exporting to South Korea 700 tons of frozen duck or duck meat. In 2008, Taiwan has exported 30 tons of frozen ducks to Singapore. (dpa)