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Food Safety, Environmental Hygiene, Agriculture and Fisheries
In 2019, about 8,700 permits were issued for animal imports, which included dogs, cats, horses, birds, zoo animals and live food animals such as pigs and cattle.
Quarantine Detector Dog Programme
The Quarantine Detector Dog Programme helps combat the illegal import of animals. The dogs are trained to detect live animals and animal products hidden in luggage at boundary control points, including Lok Ma Chau, Shenzhen Bay, Hong Kong International Airport and the airport's Air Mail Centre. In 2019, more than 133,000 travellers, 680 vehicles and 18,000 parcels and pieces of luggage were screened.
Animal Welfare and Management
The government's approach towards animal welfare and management includes strengthening public education, controlling animal trading properly, fostering close partnerships with animal welfare organisations, managing stray animals properly, and handling and preventing acts of animal cruelty.
Hong Kong is rabies-free. All dogs over five months old must be licensed and vaccinated against rabies. Stray dogs and cats are brought to the AFCD animal management centres, and healthy and well-tempered ones are rehomed.
The department encourages care and respect for animals. In 2019, it held 123 educational talks, seven dog training courses, 31 exhibitions and a pet adoption day to promote responsible pet ownership and animal welfare.
The department partners with 18 animal welfare organisations to rehome dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and reptiles. It works with these organisations to hold joint animal adoption events and to provide free desexing for animals rehomed through them, and subvents these organisations in carrying out animal welfare and management projects.
A working group involving the AFCD, FEHD, police and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals seeks to improve the handling of animal cruelty reports by examining the government's work on handling cruelty cases, devising guidelines and ensuring animal welfare is well protected.
All pet shops selling animals must be licensed by the department, which inspects these shops to ensure compliance with the licensing conditions. Pet shops are required to obtain dogs for sale only from approved sources. Dog breeders and sellers are subject to tightened regulations and increased penalties under the Public Health (Animals and Birds) (Trading and Breeding) Regulations.
Primary Production
Hong Kong's agricultural and fisheries industries are relatively small in scale. The government helps improve their output quality, productivity and competitiveness. The two industries combined employed some 17,751 people directly and produced $4.24 billion of output during
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