Feathers fly as H7N9 hits China's down industry

BEIJING - The H7N9 bird flu epidemic, which has inflicted huge losses on China's poultry industry, is also hitting the country's down products manufacturers.

The virus, which has so far killed 36 of the 130 people infected nationwide, prompted the culling of birds and the closure of poultry farms and thus cut the output of raw down feathers, sending their prices spiralling upward.

As a result, many down products producers have no choice but to idle their production capacity.

"Even you have money, it's not easy to buy enough duck down feathers," said Yang Bin, chairman of Bingda Feather Co in the city of Fengcheng in Jiangxi province, a major down feathers trading center in east China.

"Due to materials shortage, our staff are working half days," said Yang. "Our workshop used to be stuffed with raw down feathers and the workers could barely find any empty space to stand on."

Down products manufacturers in the Xintang sub-district in Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou, capital of east China's Zhejiang province, where nearly 70 percent of China's raw down feathers are processed, are also feeling the chill.

They have faced severe shortages of materials as the local government ordered them to stop purchases from regions including Shanghai and Anhui that have recorded a high number of H7N9 cases.

Chen Xiaoyang, a worker at the Hangzhou Hualong Eider Down Products Co said staff used to rest only one to two days a month, now they take about one week off on average per month. As a result, many workers earn 1,000 yuan less a month, said another worker named Han Danhong.