Indonesia to begin supplying chickens to Singapore

Jakarta [Indonesia], July 7 (ANI/Xinhua): Indonesia will start exporting frozen, chilled and processed chickens to its neighboring country Singapore which is currently experiencing domestic price increases and shortages of poultry animals.
Indonesia proposed to become Singapore's new supplier of chickens last month after Malaysia put restrictions on chicken export aiming to stabilize domestic production and prices. Meanwhile, around one-third of the chicken supply in Singapore reportedly originated from Malaysia.
Due to the Malaysian export restriction and the recent approval from the Singaporean government, the poultry industry in Indonesia, which currently experiences an oversupply of chicken production, would make its fortune from the upcoming chicken export for people in the city-state.
Indonesia currently is able to produce between 55 million and 60 million poultry per week with a surplus of between 15 percent and 20 percent after domestic consumption, Indonesia's Poultry Breeders Association told media recently.
This year, as Southeast Asia's most populous country with more than 270 million people, Indonesia is targeting to produce 3.88 million tons of chicken meat and 5.92 million tons of chicken eggs, Indonesia's Agriculture Ministry said.
Those figures were more than the domestic demand in the country, Nasrullah, who is the ministry's director general of livestock and animal health services, said on Tuesday, adding that the surplus amount could be marketed overseas.
According to the ministry, Indonesia is exporting its poultry products such as hatching eggs, day-old chicken, and chicken carcasses to countries, including Myanmar, Japan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The Southeast Asian biggest economy has been promoting its poultry products in Singapore since 2018, but it never exported chicken to the country. So far, it has only exported salted eggs instead, Nasrullah said.
"We hope this is a good initial step into cooperation between Indonesia and Singapore, as Indonesia could help fulfill the demand for poultry products from all Singaporeans," he said.
Nasrullah said that Singaporean authorities had come to Indonesia and visited poultry farming as well as several facilities to inspect food safety and animal health control in the industry before adding Indonesia to its list of 20 accredited countries to export chicken.
More than 10 poultry companies in Indonesia have submitted applications for accreditation to export chickens to Singapore. However, only three of them have been accredited.
Nasrullah had asked the companies to immediately execute their debut exports with a business-to-business scheme. The number of exports, he added, will depend on the agreement between companies. (ANI/Xinhua)