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Indonesia exported 50 tonnes of frozen chicken to Singapore on Wednesday, July 13, CNA reported.

This is the first shipment of chicken by Indonesian companies sent to Singapore under a new arrangement.

A total of 1,000 tonnes of chicken meat will be shipped here until the end of 2022.

Ceremony held to mark occasion

The deal was struck between Charoen Pokphand Indonesia (CPI), which is a subsidiary of Thailand-based food conglomerate Charoen Pokphand, and a Singapore importer.

A ceremony was held to to mark the occasion that saw Indonesian Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo in attendance.

It was reported that Indonesia is attempting to boost its national poultry industry and penetrate the global market following this deal with Singapore.

Limpo said: "Singapore has a high standard for their food imports. I hope that this shipment will boost confidence of other countries towards Indonesian food products."

“Right now, we are experiencing an oversupply of chicken which enables us to export our chicken products overseas,” he noted.

Indonesian poultry shipped elsewhere is not new.

Besides Singapore, CPI has also exported chicken and chicken products to Japan, Timor-Leste, Papua Guinea and Qatar.

Other companies involved

According to the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), three companies from Indonesia had been given permission to export chicken meat and chicken meat products into the country.

The other two companies have not began exporting their products to Singapore.

There are 12 other Indonesian companies currently seeking permission to export chicken products to Singapore.

All applications have been submitted to SFA.

Background

Singapore imported 214,400 tonnes of chicken meat in 2021.

About one-third of it were from Malaysia.

Malaysia has put in place an export ban of up to 3.6 million chickens a month since June 1, following supply and pricing issues domestically.

In response to the ban, Singapore announced it will source chickens from other places, including Indonesia and Thailand.

Within a month, on June 30, Singapore confirmed that Indonesia has become a new source for the import of chilled, frozen and processed chicken.

The next phase would be to export live chickens from Indonesia to Singapore.

In Malaysia, local poultry industry players are lamenting that they might lose the Singapore market for good.

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