January 8, 2007

Philippine agri chief assures supply, price of chicken

Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Arthur Yap on Thursday assured adequate supply of chicken at stable prices in the months ahead following the arrival last month of previously-approved imports by poultry-industry stakeholders totalling 3,000 metric tonnes (MT).

Yap made the assurance to dispel fears by some stakeholders of a possible chicken shortfall in January to February, which may lead to a price hike of the commodity after the holidays.

He said the retail cost of chicken remained stable at P110 to P120 (US$2.25-US$2.46) per kilo during the holidays, even going down to as low as P105 (US$2.15) per kilogramme in Metro Manila wet markets, despite its increase in demand.

Frozen chicken in the supermarkets are as low as US$2 per kilo.

The imports were initiated by poultry groups United Broiler Raisers Association and the Philippine Association of Broiler Integrators, has been approved by the DA in a foreseen shortfall chicken supply during the Christmas season.

The National Meat Inspection Service (NMIS) also reported that the country's cold storage facilities contain around 2.62 million kilos of local and imported chicken as of January 2.

On the other hand, poultry stakeholders like San Miguel Corp.Bounty Agro Ventures, Tyson Agro Ventures

RFM Swift, QSR Corp,. Universal Robina JARE, and Foster Foods have imported a total of three million kilos by end-December 2006.

These imports do not yet include the remaining Minimum Access Volume (MAV) allocations or the minimum importation volume of agri-products with low tariffs of other poultry stakeholders like the KFC Group, Purefoods Hormel, and Sub-O Mayon, totaling 3.42 million kilogrammes.

The Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI) said aside from the three million kilos imported by stakeholders and 3.42 million kilos more of imports under the MAV, another 854,000 kilos of chicken were also brought in by regular importers under the Special Safeguard measure (SSG) of the government or a total of 7.27 million kilos or over 7,000 MT in chicken imports.