Premier Su Tseng-chang  yesterday ordered government agencies in charge of preventing the spread of African swine fever to Taiwan to devise measures to deter foreign e-commerce platforms that have repeatedly sold meat products that have not passed quarantine to the nation.

While the Legislative Yuan earlier this month passed amendments to the Act for Prevention and Control of Infectious Animal Disease, setting the maximum fine for local e-commerce platforms advertising imported meat products that have not passed quarantine at NT$150,000 (US$4,933), they do not cover foreign e-commerce companies.

Media reports said that a person who purchased a mouse trap on the Chinese e-commerce Web site Taobao.com received not only what they had ordered, but also some sausages apparently meant to be used as bait to entice mice.

Su ordered the ministries of economic affairs, transportation and communications, justice and the interior to come up with preventive measures to deal with foreign e-commerce platforms that have repeatedly sold illegal meat products to Taiwan.

The ministries should take measures to cut connections between repeat offenders and the nation, Su said at the weekly Cabinet meeting.

They should also promote public awareness of the new rules relating to e-commerce operators and customers and ensure their strict enforcement, he said.

Su added that the nation has applied with the World Organization for Animal Health to be listed as a foot-and-mouth disease-free zone where vaccination is not practiced, as it has not required vaccination for more than a year in preventing the disease.

If successful, Taiwan would be able to export pork, with the projected revenue of exports to Japan alone estimated at NT$55 billion a year, he said.

The economics ministry and the Council of Agriculture should explore the possibility of expanding pork exports to other Asian nations in the absence of Chinese pork exports in the foreseeable future, the premier said.

He compared the situation to the US-China trade dispute, with the UN saying Taiwan has been the biggest beneficiary of the conflict.

The nation should keep its pig farming industry unpolluted and capitalize on biogas collected from pig farming to generate electricity, he said, adding that relevant agencies should set out plans to boost the nation’s biogas power-generation capability.