The South African Poultry Association (Sapa) has noted “positive gains” that have been made towards increasing South Africa's exports of poultry.

This is one of the key objectives of the Poultry Industry Master Plan, aimed at growing the industry, which is being driven by Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel and Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza.

“It is exactly a year since the master plan was signed and it is gratifying that despite the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, we can confirm that certain crucial steps have been taken towards enabling more exports of South African chicken.

"It is to the credit of Ministers Patel and Didiza that South African chicken products can now be exported to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and hopefully also soon to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere,” acclaimed Sapa’s Broiler Organisation GM Izaak Breitenbach.

This follows after the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development successfully negotiated a new export certificate opening up the UAE for imports of South African poultry products, he noted.

He confirmed that the first producer is already exporting to the UAE and that Sapa expects market access negotiations to be held with Saudi Arabia in the near future.

Steps are also being taken to facilitate exports to neighbours in the Southern African Customs Unions (Sacu) countries. Breitenbach noted that the country does have export certificates in place for Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland, but access is restricted in terms of these countries’ quota polices.

The expectation is that the Sacu arrangement "will be smoothed" in the near future in terms of the master plan to enable increased exports.

While exporting to the European Union (EU) is on the export planning agenda, this is challenging owing to EU import protocols.