March 1, 2016
Pork opportunities in Taiwan, Vietnam and Philippines
Taiwan, Vietnam and the Philippines are emerging markets with promising opportunities for EU and US pork exporters, the AHDB Pork said.
Of the three emerging markets, Taiwan has the highest meat consumption per capita in Asia, with pork at around 39 kilogramme per head.
Although much of its consumption is served by domestic production, with self-sufficiency in 2013 around 93%, Taiwan was hit with an outbreak of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv), which caused the loss of 150,000 piglets and an increase in the domestic pig price to a 10-year high.
Pork imports to Taiwan almost doubled to 71,000 tonnes during the period January-October 2015 from 38,000 tonnes in the same period in 2014, most of them coming from the EU and Canada.
"This presents an opportunity for UK and EU exporters (as) domestic production is vulnerable to inefficiencies", said AHDB Pork, a division of the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board.
Vietnam''s pork consumption
Vietnam has also high levels of pork consumption per capita, and these are forecast to continue rising as the country''s economy grows, AHDB Pork said.
Its domestic production in January-June 2015 increased 4% to 2.05 million tonnes, and is forecast by the US Department of Agriculture to rise 1% this year.
AHDB Pork said there was in increased appetite for imported pork products and that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement should make access to the Vietnamese market easier.
"Long-term projections from OECD-FAO forecast pork imports to increase as a share of consumption from 4% to 7% by 2025, a projection which could prove to be conservative", it added.
Increased pork production in Philippines
Domestic production of pork in the Philippines increased by over 4% to 2.12 million tonnes in 2015, and imports dropped 14% in January-October 2015 to 47,600 tonnes from the same period in 2014. "This could mean lower export opportunities to the Philippines as increased domestic production moves to meet a largely stable demand" AHDB Pork said. "However", it added, "the nature of local production means there are likely to be times when there is a need for more imports".
Growing GDP and population, and changing consumer demographics will create the need for imported pork as they would put further strain on relatively inefficient domestic production, AHDB Pork said. -Rick Alberto