Japan said Monday it has suspended imports of poultry meat from Indonesia in response to an outbreak of avian flu there.

An official of the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said the ministry is also trying to confirm the authenticity of a Hong Kong newspaper report that bird flu may have hit ducks in China.

China is Japan's third-largest source of chicken meat.

Suspending imports from that nation would have a considerable impact on the domestic chicken market.

Imports from Thailand, the largest exporter to Japan, have been suspended since Thursday.

Indonesia exports around 2,000 tons of poultry meat to Japan annually, accounting for less than 1 percent of Japan's overall imports.

Poultry meat imports from Cambodia have also been banned due to the possibility of an outbreak of bird flu there, the ministry said. Cambodia has never exported chicken to Japan.

As of Monday, the outbreak of bird flu had prompted Japan to suspend chicken imports from nine economies, including Thailand, Vietnam and South Korea.

Jakarta said Sunday two diseases, one of them avian influenza, have killed some 4.7 million birds, mostly poultry, since August.

Experts, not ministers

Japan might send experts to a proposed international ministerial conference in Thailand to study measures to deal with the outbreak of bird flu in Asia.

But Mamoru Ishihara, vice minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, said Monday it would be difficult for Tokyo to dispatch its health and agriculture ministers as proposed by Thailand due to Diet business.

Alarmed by the bird flu outbreak, Thailand has asked Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to dispatch their health and agriculture ministers to the conference.

The Thai government wants to host the conference on Wednesday.