According to Trade and Enterprise, Singapore is one of NZ’s largest trading partners and the seventh largest export market. It is one of NZ’s largest markets for food and beverages.
NZ Pork chief executive David Baines said the covid-19 pandemic has put more urgency on Singaporean authorities to establish a supply chain with the NZ pork industry.
“The supply of food for their population has been put under pressure and my understanding is that they produce only 10% of the food that they require.”
The NZ industry is looking to develop a longer-term supply agreement into the high-end market on the back of that, he said.
To succeed will require collaboration with all parties including the Primary Industries Ministry, buyers and sellers.
‘We’re both working as hard as we can to clear the way for the buyers and the sellers to meet in the middle and get a good outcome.”
Baines said it is also an MPI priority to make it happen.
Singapore has revised its overseas market access requirements (OMAR) to make its market more accessible to pork processors. That should make it easier for NZ producers to fulfil their regulatory obligations to be able to export.
“Most of them only operate domestically and they don’t operate under an export meat licence so now that OMAR has been refined to where it’s almost at the point where it’s almost acceptable for the equivalents of the NZ market to be acceptable in that market.”
It is almost at the stage now where willing sellers and buyers could enter a commercial arrangement facilitated by NZ Pork, he said.
“The opportunity exists now for product to flow. It’s just a question of whether it would be acceptable from a commercial standpoint.”
This could be either frozen or fresh products. It is too early to know what volume Singapore might take.
Supply chain links are largely already established within Singapore to ensure it is sold in the high-end market thanks to that 20-year relationship.
Baines said the pig farmers he has spoken to have been encouraged by the progress.
“They’re hopeful it will eventuate because we have seen that the continued operation in a closed market really isn’t a smart long-term situation to be in and you need to have alternatives when one market is full.
“The development of an alternative market is something we have had on our wishlist continually for a very long time.”
The vast majority of NZ pork is produced for the domestic market with a small amount exported to Australia and the Pacific Islands.
“Everyone is motivated to try and make this work. That’s both the industry and Government and if it was established it would remove one of the immediate pressures for us which is the oversupply, which has arisen because of the covid scenario.”
