High costs blamed for holding back poultry exports

Thailand needs to overcome major obstacles – particularly the strong baht, high prices of feed ingredients and high cost of labour – to be fully ready to export chicken to Asean and the rest of the world, according to the Thai Broiler Processing Exporters Association.

The government should set up a plant to eliminate chicken carcasses and waive the 2-per-cent duty on imported soy-milk residue and the butcher fee, it says.

Anan Sirimongkolkasem, president of the association, said yesterday that Thailand had exported poultry products for a long time and was quite ready in terms of farm management, feed mills and processing plants, which are its advantages compared with neighbouring countries in Asean.

However, many countries in the region, such as Malaysia and the Philippines, have still not opened their markets to chicken products from Thailand.

Thailand’s 1.90 billion tonnes of chicken meat account for 2 per cent of the world’s production of about 82.42 billion tonnes per year. Thailand ranks ninth in the world, following the United States with 16.48 billion tonnes and China with 13.70 billion. 

Thailand is the fourth-biggest exporter of chicken meat at 552,000 tonnes per year, behind the US and the European Union. 

Thailand’s major export markets are Japan, accounting for 40 per cent of its chicken-meat exports, the EU at 43 per cent and other markets for 17 per cent. Only 4 per cent is to Asean.

Two major markets for chicken meat in Asean, Vietnam and the Philippines, usually buy from the United States, while Singapore orders from Brazil and the US. Thailand exports 13,030 tonnes of chicken meat to Singapore per year out of the country’s total import demand of about 100,000 tonnes, and 12,235 tonnes to Malaysia out of 50,000 tonnes.

Thailand ships 9,600 tonnes of chicken meat to Laos, 62 tonnes to Vietnam and 37 tonnes to Cambodia a year.

“However, some markets such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Myanmar and Brunei import no chicken meat from Thailand,” Anan said.

 

Biggest meat producer 

Thailand is the biggest chicken-meat producer in Asean. The country has similar age demographics as neighbouring markets. 

About 70 per cent of the population are young and working, with ages ranging from 15-64.

However, Anan said, the drawbacks of Thailand are high costs for labour and feed-meal ingredients, which are almost all imported.

 The appreciation of the baht has also taken a chunk out of the country’s sales of chicken meat abroad, the association says.