Malaysia halted chicken exports to Singapore from Jun 1 due to domestic price hikes and limited supply.
The government implemented its export ban, which affected volumes of around 3.6 million chickens per month, to ensure that domestic needs were fully safeguarded going into the Eid al-Adha festive season.
The move was meant to be short-term, in response to lower chicken production that affected prices and supply.
While it was perceived as critical to stabilising prices within Malaysia, there was no apparent impact on the price of chicken in Malaysia initially but the ban greatly impacted Singapore, a key Malaysian market.
Singapore is deeply reliant on imported food. For its poultry needs, up to 34 per cent is imported from Malaysia, while 49 per cent comes from Brazil and 12 per cent from the United States.
Channel News Asia reported that most of the chicken Singapore imported from Malaysia was imported live, unlike the frozen imports from the other two major suppliers.
To fill the gap, Singapore has increased imports of chicken meat from Thailand and Indonesia.
Interestingly, Indonesia had never exported chicken to Singapore until now despite having an oversupply of the produce. Data revealed that Indonesia can produce can produce around 280 million to 300 million live chickens per month.
Demand For Export Licences
For many years, Indonesia lacked the access to supply chicken to Singapore. Sourcing live chickens from Malaysia is more straightforward and cheaper, given that supplies can be trucked in over land; shipping it by sea from even Indonesia’s nearest islands would add to costs for such a volume of imported poultry.
However, Singapore has had to find a workaround after Malaysia’s ban affected local businesses and households significantly. On Jun 30, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) approved imported frozen, chilled and processed chicken meat from Indonesia.
It will take time before Indonesia claims its place as a competitive exporter of chicken meat to Singapore.
In the long run, Indonesia will be able to compete only if it can find a way to transport live chickens to Singapore, so one is crying ‘fowl’ as yet.
