Thailand’s poultry exports saw significant decline due to China suspending several processing plants, amid the energy crisis which exacerbates production costs, according to Kukrit Areepakorn, Manager of the Thai Broiler Processing Exporters Association.
Prior to the suspension, China can bring in poultry products from 22 processing plants in Thailand, but now this is limited to only 5 plants.
The suspension is due to China’s strict enforcement on hygiene and production standards, and currently the Thai Department of Livestock Development is negotiating with Chinese authorities to lift the ban on exports.
Sources also blamed the strict enforcement partially on China’s strategy to rely more on domestic production which has increased substantially in recent years. Despite the effort, prices of chicken and popular chicken parts like chicken feet, continue to increase.
The Gulf Crisis, apart from raising production cost, has also curtailed Thai poultry export to lucrative markets like Middle East.
This has also caused a shortage in plastic production leading to packaging issues, while prices of animal feed ingredients continue to increase.
For the month of January and February, Thai chicken exports dropped by 2% and this is expected to drop further for the rest of 2026. In 2025, Thailand exported 1.3 million tonnes of poultry products valued at Bt 156 billion (US$4.8 billion). The association projected exports to the Chinese market to drop to 40,000 tonnes this year from 100,000 tonnes in 2025. For the Middle East market, there might be zero exports in 2026 compared to 20,000 tonnes last year. Thailand’s most important market, Japan in which it exported 500,000 tonnes (40%) last year is now facing serious shortage of plastic packaging.
Poultry exports accounted for 22% or Bt 30 billion (US$923 million) of Thai meat export value.
