Charoen’s export plan to Japan on hold

JAKARTA. Indonesia’s largest poultry firm, PT Charoen Pokphand Indonesia, is holding back its plan to export part of its processed chicken products to Japan due to the latter’s strict regulation on avian flu.

Suparman Sastrodimedjo — independent commissioner of the local unit of a Thai conglomerate, the Charoen Pokphand Group — said following a shareholders meeting on Friday that the East Asian country still imposed an import ban on Indonesian poultry and its related products over avian flu concerns.

“The only reason is that Indonesia is still included in the avian influenza-affected zone, while Japan is listed as an avian influenza-free zone,” he said, adding the Indonesian government was still in talks with its Japanese counterpart over the matter.

Indonesia recorded 193 confirmed human cases of avian influenza as of March this year, while Japan had zero, the latest report from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows.

Suparman said Charoen did not have a specific target on the amount of processed chicken products it would export to Japan if the latter finally lifted the ban.

“But we hope we can export as many as possible to fulfill the Japanese market’s demand there,” he said.

Indonesian Poultry Breeders Association (GAPPI) chairman Anton J. Supit previously said that Charoen, along with PT Japfa Comfeed Indonesia and PT Sierad Produce, planned to export part of its processed chicken products to Japan.

Charoen’s brand is known as Fiesta, Japfa’s as So Good and Sierad’s as Belfoods.

Anton said Japan had previously imported poultry and related products from Indonesia before stopping in 2004, when avian flu cases broke out here.

He said the Indonesian Agriculture Ministry had recently opened a discussion with the Japanese Embassy in Indonesia to lift the import ban to allow for the exportation of Indonesia’s processed chicken products.

“It is predicted that the potential value of exporting processed chicken products to Japan stands at around $1 billion a year,” Anton said.

Apart from its export plan to Japan, Charoen has recently acquired part of the assets of Sierad Produce in the form of factories and breeding farms worth Rp 430 billion (US$37.05 million), to boost its production.

Charoen director Eddy Dharmawan said on Friday that the newly acquired assets would add to his company’s output by 5 percent, particularly for its day-old chicks (DOCs) and processed chicken products.

Charoen aimed to produce around 900 million DOCs and 96,000 tons of food products throughout this year with a total capital expenditure of Rp 2 trillion, before purchasing the assets.

The firm booked a 19.6 percent increase in revenue to Rp 6.72 trillion in the first quarter this year, from Rp 5.6 trillion in the same period last year.