December 29, 2010
Philippine 2010 chicken, pork imports up over 30%
Chicken and meat imports by the Philippines increased by 31 percent and 34 percent, respectively, from last year based on government statistics.
Data from the Bureau of Agricultural Statistics showed that as of Dec. 13 chicken imports had reached 97,197,041 kilograms compared to total imports of 67,264,871 kilograms for the whole of 2009.
Pork imports reached 172,625,948 kilogram from January to December this year, compared to only 114,365,159 kilograms for the whole of 2009.
The high increase is being criticized by local chicken and pork producers, who claim that their viability is threatened.
BAI reports of a rise in imports of chicken cuts, chicken leg quarters, whole chicken, deboned chicken and offals, while there has been a decline in imports of chicken fat and rind/skin.
As for pork, there has been a continued increase in all imports of pork cuts, pork bellies, deboned pork, fats, offals and pork rind/skin.
Imports of chicken cuts as of Dec. 13 this year amounted to 3,241,328 kilograms from the 2,992,675 kilograms imported in 2009.
Imports of chicken leg quarters increased by more than 10 million kilograms this year to a total of 36,830,940 kilograms compared to last year's imports of only 26,371,512 kilograms.
Imports of whole chicken more than doubled this year to 603,258 kgs compared to the 250,777 kgs imported last year.
Likewise, imports of deboned chicken also increased this year to 56,064,472 kgs compared to imports last year amounting to only 36,887,340 kgs.
There was also a noticeable increase in imports of chicken offals this year with imports tripling to 121,114 kgs compared to last year's imports amounting to only 40,387 kgs.
A decline in imports, on the other hand, was registered in chicken fats from 211,526 kgs last year to only 103,680 kgs for this year.
Likewise, imports of chicken rind/skin this year fell to 232,248 kgs compared to the 510,654 kgs imported last year.
Imports of all kinds of pork products, on the other hand, registered significant increases with pork bellies almost doubling this year to 15,792,043 kgs from last year's imports of only 8,587,21 kgs.
Pork cuts imports increased to 54,875,719 kgs this year from only 34,196,306 kgs last year.
Imports of pork offals also almost doubled this year to 52,501,542 kgs compared to the 28,959,277 kgs imported last year.
Imports of deboned pork almost quadrupled to 108,000 kgs this year compared to 27,000 kgs last year, while imports of pork rind/skin increased to 20,461,125 kgs this year from only 16,196,325 kgs last year.
Pork fat imports similarly increased this year to 28,887,518 kgs compared to imports last year of only 26,399,038 kgs.
