Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam needed topromote the development of it’s poultry sector due to rising demand for eggsand meat in the domestic and global markets.

Experts made the comments at a recent meetingorganised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in Hanoi.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment Phung Duc Tien said it was necessary to focus on production tomeet quality standards at home and abroad.

This would create favourable conditions fordomestic poultry products to meet hygiene and safety standards in exportmarkets such as Japan, the Republic of Korea (RoK) and some ASEAN countries,Tien said.

It would also help local businesses expand theirproduction scale and export to potential markets including China andthe Philippines, he said.

However, experts said the industry needed astrategy to increase other processed poultry products includingprocessed chicken and duck and other products processed from eggs.

They said this year, localities should drawup support policies for farmers, owners and enterprises to investin poultry development.

Deputy Director of the MARD's Animal HusbandryDepartment Nguyen Van Trong said Vietnam held huge potentialfor poultry production because of domestic high demand witha population of nearly 100 million, excluding export demand.

According to Trong, output had increased to1 million tonnes of meat and 11 billion eggs.

Current trends in consumption of animal productsshow that pork accounts for 65 percent of Vietnamese meals whilechicken is just 20 percent, therefore, the domestic poultry industry needs toenhance chicken farming for domestic consumption and export.

Nguyen Quang Hieu, Deputy General Director of DeHeus Co. Ltd. said, to boost exports, the industry should build safe areasfree from disease and have mechanisms to protect livestock farms, ensuringquality standards of export markets.

According to the ministry, joining internationalorganisations as well as bilateral, multilateral and free trade agreementswould help domestic poultry production meet domestic consumption andexport demands.

The average consumption for the averageperson is 89 eggs per year while the figure is 125-340 eggs in Thailandand Indonesia and 404 in Israel.

In addition, the domestic confectionery andprocessed food industry was also developing an increasing demand for eggs.

Global production in 2019 was expected toincrease by 3 percent compared to 2018 to reach 98.4 million tonnes,marking the strongest growth rate over the past five years mainly due torising demand in China. That was a great opportunity for the nation to promotepoultry meat and egg exports, according to the MARD.

The poultry production industry was applyingscientific and technological advances in production to improve quality ofproducts and competitiveness.

However, there was an imbalance between supplyand demand because there were small scale farms with high productioncosts and risk of disease.-VNA