Thailand’s Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) has reported that chicken meat exports increased by 8.3% during the first quarter of 2015, compared with the same period the year before. The figure includes value-added frozen and chilled products as well as fresh chicken.
“Currently the main export markets include Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Laos and Singapore, while export markets with the most growth potential are South Africa, Malaysia and Cambodia,” said DITP Director General Nuntawan Sakuntanaga. “For 2015, Thailand expects to export a total volume of 620,000 tons of chicken, an increase of 5% from last year, generating a total value of US $2.57 billion.”
Sakuntanaga added that the DITP is working closely with related departments to increase exports to South Korea by June. “As for the Middle East, Thai entrepreneurs will meet with Iranian counterparts to inspect the factories first, and presently Thailand is awaiting an import license from Russia,” she added.
2014 Export Trends
In the first half of 2014, chicken meat exports from Thailand (both cooked and uncooked) increased by 3% to 250,336 tons, compared to 243,126 tons during the same period in 2013, according to a GAIN Report published by the USDA Foreign Agriculture Service. Of total chicken exports that occurred in the first half of 2014, Japan and the European Union (EU) remained the major buyers, accounting for 41% and 38%, respectively, of Thai chicken meat products.
Exports to the EU market increased for cooked chicken products (92,645 tons from January to June of 2014 compared to 84,931tons during the same period of 2013) and uncooked chicken meat (9,053 tons against 8,257 tons). Since the reopening of Japan’s market to Thai uncooked chicken meat, exports to Japan increased to 14,397 tons in the first half of 2014 from only 51 tons in the same period of 2013.
“Meanwhile, exports of cooked chicken meat to Japan declined to 81,885 tons from 93,685 tons,” stated the GAIN Report. “Trade sources cite that the trade-off between two kinds of Thai products exported to the Japanese market is mainly because some food service users and ready-to-eat food manufacturers in Japan would like to distinguish their products with imported cooked chicken products.”
