Taiwan has the opportunity to increase its exports of frozen or chilled meat and fish products to Asian countries affected by the deadly avian flu outbreak, but only if it can persuade potential importers to lift the ban on Taiwanese chicken, industry insiders said.
While Taiwan has not been designated an affected area by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), 18 countries -- including Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Saudi Arabia -- have banned Taiwanese chicken imports since the discovery of the weaker H5N2 virus at local chicken farms last month.
"Foreign countries' bans on chicken exports from Taiwan have become an obstacle to the nation's efforts to enhance its overseas markets," said Lee Shu Ching (
"The nation's exports of frozen and chilled meat may double to more than NT$1.2 billion [this year] compared with last year if the export ban by foreign countries can be lifted soon," Lee said.
Bird flu has caused a decline in domestic chicken consumption of up to 30 percent, but Lee said the drop in demand would last no more than three months.
"The epidemic, however, brings Taiwan a great opportunity to boost its exports of chicken and other meats as Taiwan is free of H5N1, the strong strain of the virus, while most other Asian countries are regarded as infected areas," she said.
As chicken exports from major exporters including the US and Thailand are banned by many countries, orders for chicken have been redirected to Taiwan, the head of a local poultry association said.
"We have received orders for more than 10 million tonnes of chicken from a bunch of countries like Indonesia, Hong Kong and Japan," said Wu Chuan-chin (吳泉錦), chairman of the ROC Poultry Association (中華民國養雞協會).
Charoen Pokphand Enterprise (Taiwan) Co (
But the companies are prevented from filling the orders, and industry leaders have urged the government to accelerate consultations with other countries to resolve the problem as soon as possible.
"If things can go smoothly, we may be able to ship chicken to countries in the Middle East in the next one or two weeks at the earliest," Wu said. "We hope shipments to the Middle East can help convince other countries to lift the ban on our chicken products."
Government officials said they had been doing their best to get the bans lifted.
"We have been urging these countries through Taiwan's overseas representative offices since the beginning of last week to lift their bans to comply with the regulations of the OIE, which only imposes bans on poultry products from areas affected by H5N1, the strong strain of the virus," said Yeh Ying (葉瑩), deputy director general at the Bureau of Animal and Plant Inspection and Quarantine under the Council of Agriculture.
"We have to respect other countries' quarantine regulations and we cannot estimate when they will allow our exports to enter their territories," Yeh said.
As chicken consumption falls, demand for pork and fish has risen substantially.
Pork retail prices have risen about 10 percent and the price of grouper -- a member of the sea bass family -- has soared to more than NT$200 per catty [600g] from NT$120 per catty before the bird flu outbreak.
"People's turning to fish as a source of protein is a good chance for Taiwan's aquaculture industry to promote exports of its quality fishes, including eel, grouper and tilapia," said Frank Chiang (江福松), executive director of the Taiwan Tilapia Association (台灣鯛協會).
Tilapia -- a freshwater fish -- made up a quarter of Taiwan's aquaculture production in 2002. Production was valued at NT$2.8 billion, with most of it exported to the US and Saudi Arabia.
A Chinese-language newspaper reported last week that McDonald's and KFC may consider using Taiwan's tilapia as their source of fish. Both companies denied the report, with McDonald's saying that they had no plans to replace cod with other kinds of fish.
Chiang said there had been some talks between the fast food chains and local fish exporters, but he didn't think they could cut a deal soon.
Instead, fish farmers should remodel the industry by building up certified tilapia aquaculture and processing zones in compliance with international standards, allowing them to market fish to other countries at higher prices, Chiang said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained