IT is painful indeed to the heart to let a prized pearl slip through the fingers into the deep ocean. Once gone, it’s gone for good.
Such is perhaps the sentiment with Indonesia today (July 13) commencing its delivery of frozen chicken to Singapore, a move that will allow Malaysia’s rich southern neighbour to diversify its chicken sources after Putrajaya decided to ban exports in early June.
Malaysia ‘partially backtracked’ on its decision by allowing poultry producers and importers in Singapore to bring in live kampung chickens from across the Causeway (effective) June 14 and black chicken (June 18) but perhaps the damage cannot be undone.
This is because the export ban on commercial broiler chicken – larger chickens that make up the bulk of what Singapore typically imports from Malaysia and which is a constituent of Singaporeans’ favourite chicken rice staple – remains.
According to the Singapore Straits Times, as much as 50,000kg of frozen chicken from integrated poultry company Charoen Pokphand Indonesia (CPI) is set to depart from Tanjung Priok port in North Jakarta on Wednesday evening.
They are projected to arrive in Singapore on Friday and be handled by Crown Pacific Beverage, the CPI’s trading partner.
The shipment came after the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) approved Indonesia as Singapore’s new source of frozen, chilled and processed chicken meat to the Lion Republic on June 30.
Chicken from three establishments run by CPI and Ciomas Adisatwa, a subsidiary of publicly-listed Japfa Comfeed Indonesia, can be imported.
In a statement, the company expects to deliver 1,000 tonnes of frozen chicken to Singapore in total throughout this year.
CPI works mostly on manufacturing animal feeds, including poultry feeds but its business activities also include broiler breeding, wholesale trading of livestocks, and wholesale trading of poultry and processed chicken.
Interestingly, there is a first time for everything. According to the Singapore Straits Times, Indonesia has never sold chicken to Singapore, and has thus far only exported salted eggs totalling around 50,000 month to its trading partner.
After all, this could eventually pave way to a more lucrative deal in the near future. For now, Indonesia has nothing to lose as it faces an oversupply of chicken domestically with the situation having deteriorated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, the Southeast Asia’s biggest economy is poised to produce 3.88 million tonnes of chicken meat and hence, Jakarta hopes to export a bulk of the surplus.
Another company getting the SFA’s nod, Ciomas Adisatwa, earlier told Singapore Straits Times that the company will begin shipping frozen chickens to Singapore on July 24 and aims to deliver 100 tonnes of frozen chicken within the first month of its deliveries. – July 13, 2022
