ChileCarne wants to boost exports to ASEAN by opening markets in Vietnam and Indonesia

A mission led by the Chilean Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG) and the White Meat Exporters’ Association, ChileCarne, aims to produce a roadmap to access emerging markets, where purchasing power is expected to grow and consequently increase animal protein consumption.

In late October, there was a public-private mission to Vietnam and Indonesia led by the Acting Director of the Chilean Agricultural and Livestock Service (SAG), Andrea Collao, SAG’s Head of Livestock Protection, Carlos Orellana, and ChileCarne’s Business Manager, Rodrigo Castañón.

The mission’s goal was to make progress in the authorization process for pork and poultry processing plants to export to these two countries, markets of interest for expanding Chile’s exports. ChileCarne held meetings with the Chilean ambassadors in both countries: Ambassador Patricio Becker in Vietnam, and Ambassador Gustavo Ayares in Indonesia, who have been a great support for the industry’s efforts in this area.

“These visits are important because we want to expand our presence in Asia. Today, Chilean pork exports are concentrated in China, Japan, and South Korea, and we want to expand to new markets, which are mostly emerging. These markets are growing at an average annual rate of 7%, especially Vietnam, where purchasing power, and hence the possibility of consuming animal protein, has been rising. We want to take advantage of this growth and finally establish our market presence there,” commented ChileCarne’s Business Manager in an interview about the initiative’s objectives, impacts, and challenges.

In recent years, Chile has promoted various initiatives to open the Vietnamese market to Chilean poultry and pork, and this objective is expected to be met with this new strategy. “We met with Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Head of Animal Health, Nguyen Van Long, and we basically laid down a roadmap with the next steps to reach the authorization for the plants,” Castañón pointed out.

It should be noted that Indonesia -which is a smaller market, particularly for pork exports- has shown a significant increase in imports in the last four years. Today, it is importing almost 20 million USD, and four years ago it was just 4 million USD. Although Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim market, and hence the potential market for pork is the 14% non-Muslim population, we are talking about a universe of more than 273 million people, which makes it an extremely interesting market.

“In Indonesia, we agreed on certain actions and measures with Ambassador Ayares to move forward with the opening of the market. In fact, he joined us at a meeting with the Director of the Indonesian Public Veterinary Department (Kesmavet), Syamsul M’aarif, and we also laid down a roadmap with the various milestones to obtain the plants’ authorizations. The most immediate step will be answering a questionnaire from each of the plants requested by the Indonesian health authority by December,” Castañón added.

ChileCarne’s representative also highlighted other public-private actions the association is promoting to consolidate poultry and pork exports to Asia: “today we are making significant efforts with the new Chilean authorities to expedite the signing of a new memorandum of understanding with the Chinese health authorities that will allow for the expansion of poultry and pork exports to that market. We are taking a series of measures to promote the signing of this new memorandum that supports exports of these proteins to China and thus further consolidate our actions in Asia,” he concluded.