FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

CPF confident of Chinese govt's ability to contain bird flu outbreak

 CPF confident of Chinese govt's ability to contain bird flu outbreak

Charoen Pokphand Foods PLC (CPF) foresees no threat to its operations from the outbreak of the potent H5N1 bird flu in Shaoyang city in China, and is maintaining its 2020 sales targets on expectation that the Chinese government has immense experience in tackling these outbreaks.

CPF chief executive officer Prasit Boondoungprasert said that the outbreak in Shaoyang city in Hunan province has so far had no impact on CPF’s chicken business in China, which contributes about 2 per cent of the company’s total sales.
He added that China has dealt with bird flu epidemics for more than 10 years and has a lot of experience. Vaccination has been allowed while other preventive measures are in place, aside from international-standard elimination of dead birds. All of these result in effective disease prevention, he said.
Prasit said that opportunities for chicken meat exports from Thailand to China remain huge, thanks to the continuous increase in demand. 
In 2019, Thailand exported 70,000 tonnes of chicken meat to China and the volume is expected to jump to 150,000 tonnes in 2020 as more Thai chicken-processing plants are expecting licences. 
Meanwhile, China is putting more emphasis on the improvement of its food industry following the epidemic, to ensure greater food security and safety for its citizens.
He asserted that while the chicken business will be intact, CPF is witnessing an improvement in the swine business thanks to high pig prices, especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. This is a factor that will allow CPF to achieve its 2020 sales target of about Bt600 billion, he said.

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