Thailand`s chicken export targets lowered
Despite the reduced impact of the second round of avian flu in
"The effect on chicken exports will last until the second half of next year," said, Thailand’s Director of the Centre for Economics and Business Forecasting, Thanawat Pholvichai.
Thanawat said the government's chicken export target of Bt40-50 billion ($974 million--$1.2 billion) for 2004 would be impossible to achieve. This is due to the fact that the first outbreak was not tackled properly and had a direct impact on exports.
Export targets for frozen and processed chicken had initially been set at Bt40-50 billion, but figures will now be reduced to Bt20 billion - Bt25 billion. The poultry industry has also suffered Bt35 billion in losses from the two outbreaks. Bt10 billion was lost in production resulting from the culling of 31 million chickens.
One million chickens were culled in the second outbreak of the virus, compared with 30 million birds destroyed during the first.
