Indonesia to export chicken products to Singapore

JAKARTA: Indonesian companies will start to export chicken products to Singapore soon, according to Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture in response to CNA's queries on Wednesday July 6. At the same time, the ministry said that it is working with more businesses to get permission to export chicken products to the neighbouring country.

Singapore announced on June 30 that it has added Indonesia as a new source for the import of chilled, frozen and processed chicken.

Three Indonesian companies were granted permission to export chicken meat and chicken meat products into the country, according to the Singapore Food Agency.

Two of the companies are Indonesian subsidiaries of Thailand-based food conglomerate Charoen Pokphand, while the other is a subsidiary of Indonesian frozen food giant Japfa Comfeed.

Mdm Tri Mela Sari, a director at Indonesia's Ministry of Agriculture, told CNA that three accredited companies have yet to export their products to Singapore.

How soon these companies can start exporting chickens to Singapore will depend on the B2B business-to-business negotiations between the Indonesian companies and their Singaporean counterparts. How much chicken meat would be exported will depend on the B 2 B negotiations, she said.

We will let you know when the deal is done. The ministry spokesman for animal product processing and marketing said there are 12 other Indonesian companies that are currently seeking permission to export chicken products to Singapore. All applications were submitted to the SFA.

We are waiting for the SFA to begin their audit process. The government hopes the audit can be completed soon, said Mdm Mela Sari.

A team from the SFA visited Indonesia last month to audit Indonesia's food safety and animal health controls. The team visited farms, quarantine stations and laboratories to understand the regulatory systems in place.

Individual establishments and farms had to be approved and evaluated with detailed documentary evaluations and on-site audits for verification, according to the SFA.

According to an estimate by the Ministry of Agriculture last month, Indonesia s chicken meat production is expected to reach 5.9 million tons in 2022.

Domestic demand for chicken meat is estimated to be 5.3 million tons this year. There would be an average monthly surplus of around 50,000 tons.

We are experiencing an oversupply of chicken domestically. Our surplus is quite a lot, said Nasrullah, the Agriculture Ministry's director-general of livestock and animal health who goes by one name, told CNA.

The ministry said last year Indonesia exported around 500 tons of chicken to its neighbouring country, Timor Leste.

In the last year, Singapore imported 214,400 tonnes of chicken meat, about a third of which came from Malaysia.

Malaysia has imposed a ban on exports of up to 3.6 million chickens a month because of supply and pricing issues domestically, with some chicken traders selling whole chickens above the price ceiling to cover their costs.

There have been calls from Malaysia's chicken breeders for Putrajaya to lift the ban or risk losing out on the Singapore market.