The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) revised its projections for the Philippines’ expected meat imports for the year.
USDA in a July 2, 2021 report hiked its pork import forecast to 425,000 metric tons (MT) or about 100,000 MT more than the original projection of 350,000 MT on improved market access due to lower tariffs. The volume did not count importation of pork offal, fat and rind.
USDA, however, lowered the chicken import forecast to 330,000 MT from 350,000 MT.
Local production of pork remains at 1 million MT with imports expected to fill the total demand of 1.42 million MT.
Last year, the Philippine Statistics Authority recorded the country’s total pork production at 2.14 million MT while chicken production stood at 1.8 million MT.
The USDA said future prospects on pork production are tentative since growers remain cautious due to the absence of a commercially-available vaccine against the African swine fever.
USDA said the lower importation numbers for chicken is driven by issues in global supply chains.
“While official trade data remains mixed, Philippine meat processors, which account for the majority of poultry meat imports, have stressed difficulties sourcing mechanically deboned meat as long as European supplies remain restricted,” the USDA said.
With lower importation figures for chicken, expected local production was also lowered to 1.33 million MT from 1.36 million MT.
Based on the Department of Agriculture’s monitoring, as of last Friday, the prevailing price of whole chicken was at P160 per kg; liempo at P380 per kg and kasim at 340 per kg.
