US expects rebound in 2H poultry exports to PH
SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL — The United States aims to increase its poultry exports to the Philippines this year despite recording an almost 8-percent drop in shipments in 2023.
Greg Tyler, president and CEO of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council (Usapeec), said they anticipated a rebound in poultry exports in the second half of 2024 amid challenges brought about by bird flu and the strengthening of the US dollar.
Rabobank, an international financial services provider headquartered in The Netherlands, “is estimating that we are going to rebound at the last half of this year for exports,” Tyler said at the sidelines of SIAVS 2024, Brazil’s largest animal protein meeting.
The US delivered 71,228 metric tons (MT) of poultry to Manila in the January to June period, relatively flat from 71,870 MT in the same period a year, based on data provided by the Usapeec.
America supplied 172,945 MT of poultry to the country in 2023, decreasing by 7.8 percent.
US poultry exports to the Philippines have been fluctuating between 2019 and 2023.
Tyler explained that US poultry exports had declined last year due to the prevalence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) that affected the poultry industry globally.
Challenges
The US, according to the Usapeec, encountered challenges in delivering poultry to the country due to several bird flu cases in different states.
Philippine and US veterinary authorities reached an agreement in 2016 that a state-wide ban could only be imposed if there were three or more counties within one state affected with avian influenza, given the geographical extent of America’s land mass.
This is part of the country’s efforts to prevent the spread of bird flu.
Tyler likewise cited stiff competition with other exporting countries and the US dollar’s strong performance as factors behind the decline in poultry exports.
Despite these challenges, Tyler said Usapeec was finding ways to ways to scale up shipments to the Philippines, an important market for the US poultry sector.
Mostly broiler products
“In our industry, we’ve got some trading company members that are here. A lot of them are working on that to try to see if we can rebound or figure out some other products that we can export,” he added.
Usapeec noted that more than 99 percent of US poultry shipments to the Philippines were broiler products.
Figures from the Bureau of Animal Industry showed that the country had imported 181.23 million kilograms of chicken from January to May, up by about 5 percent. It mostly comprised mechanically deboned meat or mechanically separated chicken and chicken leg quarter.
Brazil was the top supplier of imported chicken during the comparative period, followed by the US, Australia and Canada.
The US Department of Agriculture had projected the country might import 465,000 MT of chicken this year, 6.2 percent higher than in 2023.
