November 29, 2006

 

South Korea's bird-flu yet to hit India's soymeal exports

 

 

The outbreak of bird-flu in South Korea will hit India's soymeal exports only if the disease is widespread and continues on a prolonged basis, a senior Indian industry executive said Wednesday (Nov 29).

 

"We are not really worried at this stage, there is no need to press the panic button on culling of a few hundred thousand birds (in South Korea)," said Rajesh Agrawal, the former chairman of the Soybean Processors Association of India, a lobby group of local soymeal exporters.

 

He said South Korea finalised a tender to for soymeal Tuesday, indicating the demand for poultry feed has not been hit in a big way and is restricted only to a small pocket.

 

South Korea's Nonghyup Feed Inc., or NOFI, bought 55,000 tonnes of soymeal in a tender concluded late Tuesday. The soymeal, either of Indian or South American origin, would be supplied by trading house Cargill at US$259.93 a tonne.

 

Agrawal said before the latest outbreak of bird-flu, South Korea was expected to buy around 400,000 tonnes Indian soymeal between October and March, of which between 150,000 tonnes and 200,000 tonnes may have already been shipped.

 

He said exporters in India would observe developments in South Korea related to bird-flu for at least another week before drawing a conclusion about impact on sales of soymeal.

 

He said at the most, demand for soymeal can be put-off for sometime but made up during the later months of the marketing year which began in October, as the replacement rate of new poultry birds for culled birds is quite high.

 

Agrawal said bird-flu in south and southeast Asia seems to have become a regular feature, but authorities have also gained confidence and experience in handling the situation.

 

He said India's projected total soymeal exports of more than 3.0 million tonnes worldwide in the current marketing year are on track, with contracts so far for over 1.3 million tonnes.

 

Out of the contracted exports, physical shipments of India's soymeal exports from October onwards are between 600,000 tonnes and 700,000 tonnes, he said.