The statistics is approximately five percent higher than the same inventory for the period January to July 2006 which registered an estimated 250,000 heads.

The recent inventory also revealed that the province has about 1.7 million ducks and chickens.

"A semestral accounting of livestock and poultry animals is being undertaken by the BAS field officers and hired data collectors," said BAS Provincial Agricultural Statistics Officer Eric Piansay.

The province's farm animals count revealed that swine and carabao have the highest population with 153,840 and 53,256 heads, respectively, while goats and cattle number 42,505 and 14,759, respectively.

Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture is currently in talks with representatives of the European Union, Middle East, China and other Southeast Asian economies to allow the country's chicken exports to enter their countries.

In a statement sent to the media, Agriculture secretary Arthur Yap said the department is doing this in anticipation of better production from the country's poultry industry.

Yap said that as of now, the department, together with its Chinese counterpart, is preparing the implementing rules and regulations for the protocols on imports from, and exports of heat-processed poultry meat to, China.

He added that the Agriculture department is also assisting exporters in completing the requirements needed to pave the way for the wider entry of Philippine chicken to the European Union, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Middle East.

The Philippine poultry industry currently exports export breeder day-old chicks to Indonesia, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia and Nepal ; processed chicken to Hong Kong, Japan, the United States, Dubai, Korea, Iran, and the Mauritius ; and fresh frozen chicken to the United Arab Emirates and Japan.