South Korea to resume imports of Thai chicken by early 2017

BANGKOK, August 11 (TNA) - South Korea is expected to resume importing Thai fresh and frozen chicken by early next year. Thai Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister General Chatchai Sarikulya told journalists of the update on Thursday, after his trip to South Korea. General Chatchai said during his visit to South Korea during August 7-10, he met his South Korean counterpart Lee Dong-pil to discuss a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on agricultural cooperation between Seoul and Bangkok, covering facilitations of bilateral farm trade, solutions to technical problems and reviews of existing agricultural cooperation between both sides. Besides, General Chatchai revealed that he received good news that South Korea will soon dispatch inspectors to examine and certify chicken production plants in Thailand, which will be the final process before Seoul resumes chicken imports from the Thai economy, expected by the end of this year or early next year. The minister noted that he will inform Thai chicken exporters to come up with their production plans to cater for more chicken orders of 30,000-40,000 tonne annually from South Korea. Thailand used to be a major chicken exporter to South Korea, but the exports were suspended in 2004 due to bird flu outbreaks. South Korea currently imports most of fresh and frozen chicken from Brazil and the United States, with the country's chicken consumption in 2015 alone estimated at 864,000 tonnes, a 1.5 per cent year-on-year increase, 13 per cent of them or about 115,000 tonnes reported to be imported ones. (TNA)