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This year in RSA has been fairly eventfull on the micro-chip front.I must express my thanks to ROGER CLARK for his assistance in dealing with problems I had. Identipet the holder of the main portion of the market in RSA use a 10 > digit chip simillar to the ones used in USA.They ran a fairly efficient but low key programme on marketing their product which included donation of old 10 digit readers from??? where to the local SPCA,S. Little was done to promote the product by Identipet although they were looking after the users quite well. I approached them some time back to see if they would change to the 15 digit nos and scanners and was told they did not see the point and despite my discussions they have continued to use 10 digit scanners and chips. Because of their attitude I found it very difficult to promote the use of "OLD" technology and to go for any form of campaign to encourage micro-chip technology. Virbac came to our rescue with 15 digit chip and scanner which they have launched to our profession. the chips are iso standard and the only chink in their marketing is that the scanners do nor read the ear tags which appears to preclude them from being fully ISO but as we are not using ear tags in companion animals I am not too worried about that. Virbac have indicated a desire to pass on the DATA BASE to a neutral body with a payment to maintain it. I have been trying to encourage our

SOUTH AFRICAN VETERINARY ASSOCIATION to take on this task but am meeting with a degree of resistance which I am battling to understand. This is the present state of our micro-chip market which in a sufficient state of flux that figures are hard to come by. Hopefully by the time I get to Bankok I will have more useful information to impart.