2012-2-3

THE PHILIPPINES may start to export heat-treated and frozen chicken to South Korea in the second semester if quarantine requirements are met, an Agriculture official said on Friday.

“The shipments of chicken to South Korea could start in the second-half of this year,” Efren C. Nuestro, Bureau of Animal Industry director, said in a briefing on Friday.

He said the shipments could begin provided exporters will be able to meet the quarantine requirements of South Korea.

“If we get [South] Korea’s requirements [for entry of chicken] in May, the government and the private sector can already start preparing for the shipments,” Mr. Nuestro said.

The government expects to obtain the health protocol and other requirements for the entry of chicken from South Korean officials in May, he added.

Officials of South Korean firm Sinwoo Food, Inc., Mr. Nuestro said, visited the country last month to discuss with the Agriculture department and the private sector its plan to import chicken meat, particularly, heat-treated and fresh frozen chicken quarter leg.

The firm, he said, has yet to specify its requirement but noted that South Korea needs 93 million kilograms of chicken per year.

Mr. Nuestro said the Philippines is an attractive source of chicken since it is free of avian influenza and is close to South Korea. He added that Seoul sources most of its meat requirements from Brazil.

Local firms are currently exporting chicken to Japan which has imposed stringent standards, he noted, a good benchmark for Korea to pursue importing from the Philippines.

Asked on the country’s plan to export pork to Malaysia, he said that authorities there have yet to give their nod to start the shipments.

“We are just waiting for Malaysia to say if they still need to visit the facility here or when the exports can start,” he said.

Jane C. Bacayo, National Meat Inspection Service executive director, said in December that a Malaysian firm wants to buy pork from the Philippines mainly for tourists.

The Philippines planned to export pork to Malaysia in August which would have marked its first shipment of the product overseas but this did not push through as the exporting firm in Bulacan and the Malaysian company failed to ink a deal.

In December 2009, the country’s planned shipment of pork to Singapore was voluntarily suspended by a company in Matutum in South Cotabato after the detection of Ebola Reston -- fatal disease for pigs -- in a farm in Luzon