July 18, 2005

Charoen Pokphand Foods expects 20 percent growth from weak baht

Charoen Pokphand Foods Plc (CPF) expects its cooked chicken and shrimp sales to reach THB110 billion, a 20 percent increase from last year.

The company's poultry sales were not affected much from the latest bird flu outbreak in Suphanburi province, when only 216 chickens have been culled compared with 50-60 million chickens destroyed in 2004, according to CPF.

Also, poultry consumers were reportedly little concerned with the latest outbreak and CPF expected export revenue of Thai cooked chicken this year to reach at least THB34 billion, up from THB22 billion last year.

CPF has also expanded production to include more cooked and semi-cooked chicken products, following foreign bans on raw chicken exports after initial outbreaks of bird flu last year.

The company has sought to meet its export target of 90,000 tonnes this year, compared with 60,383 tonnes last year.

CPF said that the Thai baht which has recently weakened against the US dollar, would benefit company performance.

CPF reported its Q1 sales had increased 23 percent year-on-year to THB23.46 billion, while profit rose 313 percent to THB1.27 billion.

Meanwhile, despite US and EU barriers to Thai shrimp exports, CPF is confident it would export 40,000 tonnes of shrimp worth THB10 billion this year, a 10 percent increase from the previous year.

There were also hopes that more could be exported if the EU expedited the reinstatement of lower tariffs on Thai shrimp.