HCM CITY — More and more businesses are exporting livestock and poultry meat, opening up great prospects for the livestock sector.

Mavin Group, a joint venture between Australia and Việt Nam, became the first business in Việt Nam to export frozen fresh pork to a foreign market when in late May its first batch went to Myanmar.

Mavin and Japanese-invested Sojitz Việt Nam announced late last month they were tying up to export about 26 tonnes of frozen fresh pork to Myanmar every month.

Koyu & Unitek Co Ltd based in the southern province of Đồng Nai exports poultry meat and processed poultry products to Japan.

Koyu & Unitek said it exports nearly 100 tonnes of processed chicken products to Japan every month.

All consignments are quarantined before export and checked when they enter the Japanese market, and so far all have met Japanese requirements, it said.

Khưu Nhơn Hiếu, the company’s director, said last year a chicken processing line was set up in the Đồng Nai Province with a capacity of 110 tonnes per month.

It produces fried chicken products.

Demand for grilled and boiled chicken products is also growing in Japan.

So the company installed two more production lines and got Japan’s veterinary agency to inspect and issue eligibility certificates to export to that country from June

The three lines have a total capacity of 330 tonnes a month, and the company plans to invest in more new plants to increase its capacity to more than 1,000 tonnes per month to meet demand from Japan, Hiếu said.

Other animal and poultry processing enterprises are also preparing to export products soon.

C.P. Vietnam Corporation is building a modern factory in Bình Phước Province to make chicken products for export to Japan.

It is a closed-chain production line from producing chicken feed to breeding chickens and slaughtering and processing them.

In the US$250 million first phase, the company will raise 50 million chickens a year.

The company said it had signed export deals with many foreign customers for animal and poultry products even before building the plant.

Phạm Thanh Hùng, deputy director of Ba Huân Joint Stock Company, said the company is seeking to export processed chicken products to Japan. It would be done quickly since the company’s quality standards meet export requirements, he said.

The demand for pork and chicken products in many markets such as Korea, Japan, and the EU is large, but only foreign-invested enterprises in Việt Nam have so far exported to them.

The director of a poultry breeding company in Đồng Nai Province said his company only supplies live chickens to export companies to get experience. In order to export directly, it needs to invest in a closed production chain and market research, and so remains apprehensive, he said.

Dr Nguyễn Văn Ngãi, head of the economics faculty at Nông Lâm University in HCM City, told Người Lao Động (Labourers) newspaper: "Initially Vietnamese companies could outsource to FDI enterprises, but they then could learn [from these FDI firms] and export directly.” — VNS