The Philippines imported 295.518 million pounds (lbs) of meat products from the United States in January to October, 10.29 percent higher than last year’s 267.937 million lbs, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The latest data from the USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) showed that the bulk of meat products imported by the Philippines during the 10-month period were broiler meat. Philippine broiler meat imports from the US expanded by 8.35 percent to 192.084 million lbs, from 177.280 million lbs recorded in the same period last year.
In October, USA Poultry and Egg Export Council Vice President of Marketing Greg Tyler told the BusinessMirror in an interview that the volume of poultry products that the Philippines would buy from the US this year would likely exceed 199.508 million lbs.
Tyler said the increase in US poultry shipments to the Philippines would be driven by the demand for chicken dishes during the holidays. “In the last quarter, you will see a big push for our exports, especially during the holiday season.”
“We have a very good outlook for our broiler exports. As long as the price is good, we think that our exports will continue to grow as leg quarters is one of our biggest exports to the Philippines,” he added.
The latest USDA-ERS market data indicated that Washington’s 10-month broiler export volume to Manila is just 7.424 million lbs away from matching their total outbound shipments of 199.508 million lbs last year.
USDA-ERS data also showed Philippine pork imports during the period reached 75.3 million lbs, 15.86 percent higher than the 64.989 million lbs recorded last year.
Data from the ERS indicated the American exporters are poised to surpass this year the 76.06 million lbs of pork products they delivered to the Philippines in 2016.
Philippine beef and veal imports from the US went up by 23 percent, according to USDA-ERS data. In January to October shipments reached 26.381 million lbs, from last year’s 21.449 million lbs.
Also, data showed US hog exports to the Philippines tripled to 895 heads, from last year’s 294 heads. The figure has also surpassed Washington’s total hog exports last year of 614 heads.
Earlier, the Meat Importers and Traders Association (Mita) projected that the country’s total meat imports this year would hit another record high due to the sustained increase in the demand for processed-meat products.
Data from the Bureau of Animal Industry obtained by the BusinessMirror showed that meat imports from January to September this year reached 510,777.572 metric tons (MT), 7.72 percent higher than the 474,163.290 MT recorded last year.
The figure is just 135,726.128 MT short of the record-high 646,503.7 MT purchased by importers last year. Mita President Jesus C. Cham said imports in the October-to-December period would likely exceed 135,000 MT.
Image credits: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg