The Malaysian Insight

EXPORTS of Malaysian edible bird’s nests to China last year grew 47.1% from 2020, as demand for the product, which is believed to provide health benefits, increased during the Covid-19 epidemic.

Chua Huai Gen, the CEO of export company Anming Resources Sdn Bhd, said demand grew despite worker shortages and higher freight charges during the epidemic because consumers took to eating bird’s nest to boost their immune system.

Although the logistics and transportation sector was affected by the epidemic lockdowns, his company’s export volume increased by 25% last year.

Additionally, China’s move to approve exports by 41 bird’s nest companies helped to generate demand, he said.

“Demand is expected to increase this year and the bird’s nest industry is expected to see strong growth in the exports sector as long as both China and Malaysia are able to manage the epidemic.

“We hope that the government can assist the bird’s nest industry by allowing us to recruit foreign workers (to ease the labour shortage), as this industry can a major foreign exchange income contributor,” Chua said.

Chua, who is also former president of the Malaysia Swiftlet Nest Industry and Exporters Association, said the sector aimed to reach exports of 200 tonnes to China alone.

Current association president Low Siang Tim, meanwhile, said Malaysian bird’s nest exporters have been riding the wave of demand by setting up branches in China to strengthen their market share.

However, he cautioned that such a development can lead to issues of quality control. Some companies may sell products of lower quality at cheaper prices in order to capture a larger share of the market.

Malaysia’s exports of edible bird’s nest to China resumed in 2014 after a period when China banned the product due to nitrite contamination. The resumption followed Beijing’s stringent quality certifications exporters must comply with.

“In the past eight years, the industry has been constantly faced with new regulations and restrictions on exports of bird’s nest. This caused a lot of delays and we endured a lot of losses.”

Things are better now; exports are now cleared in 15 days as opposed to a month before, Low added.

The main challenges for exporters currently is labour shortage and logistics costs, said Allen Tan, the president of the Federation of Malaysia Bird’s Nest Merchants Association.

Although exports increased by nearly 50% last year, the industry is facing a shortage of manpower and needs about 3,000 foreign workers to keep up with business demands.

“The good news for us is that the agriculture authorities are working with the Home and Human Resources ministries to bring in foreign workers. This will help the bird’s nest processing factories – where the labour shortage is most crucial.”

As for transportation fees, Tan predicts that this will increase by around 30%, and will eat into the companies’ profits.

Still, he is looking forward to 2022, with robust growth projected based on export patterns.

According to data on the Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine Service Centre platform, Malaysia’s bird’s nest exports to China grew from 3.09 tonnes in 2014 to 33.3 tonnes in 2018.

In 2019, 51.8 tonnes were exported, and this has doubled as of 2020 to 102.5 tonnes. – February 7, 2022.