Charoen Pokphand Foods PLC (CPF) has announced that it foresees no threat on its operations from the outbreak of potent H5N1 bird flu in Shaoyang city, maintaining 2020 sales targets on expectation that the Chinese government has immense experiences to quickly tackle the outbreak.

Prasit Boondoungprasert, chief executive officer of CPF, said that the outbreak in Shaoyang city, Hunan Province, has so far cast no impacts on CPF's chicken business in China, which contributes about 2% of the company's total sales.

He added that China has dealt with bird flu epidemic for more than 10 years and the Chinese government sits on deep experience. Vaccination has been allowed while other preventive measures are in place, aside from international-standard elimination of dead birds. All result in effective disease prevention.  

Prasit said that opportunities for chicken meat exports from Thailand to China remain huge, thanks to the continuous increase in demand. In 2019, Thailand exported 70,000 tons of chicken meat to China and the volume is expected to jump to 150,000 tons in 2020 as more Thai chicken processing plants are expecting licenses. Meanwhile, China is putting more emphasis on the improvement of its food industry following the epidemic, to promise its citizens greater food security and safety.

He asserted that while the chicken business will be intact, CPF is witnessing an improvement in the swine business thanks to high pig prices especially in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. This is a factor that will allow CPF to achieve its 2020 sale target of about Bt600,000 million.