‘Bird flu-free’ India resumes egg exports

According to trade sources, egg exports have been restarted in India after declaring itself ‘Bird flu-free’. India dispatched its first egg shipment to Muscat.

Due to the bird flu outbreak in Maharashtra last February, all the countries around the world had stopped importing eggs from India. But the epidemic was brought under control successfully by the several steps taken by the Union government, including culling of lakhs of birds.

Consequently, the Indian government declared the country to be ‘bird flu-free’ in the second week of August and also informed the World Organisation of Animal Health, also known as Organisation of International Epidemia (OIE). It is an intergovernmental organisation with 167 countries as members including India.

As a result, the Indian government’s ‘bird flu-free status’ claim report was published on the website of OIE on August 17 and the members of this organization were informed about it.

All India Poultry Products Exporters Association (AIPPEA) general secretary P Valsan said that it has paved way for India to resume egg export after a gap of 6 months.

According to Valsan, Oman (Muscat) was the first country that showed interest in re-starting egg imports from India after the declaration of ‘bird flu — free’ status.

The Indian poultry industry has shipped 2 containers of eggs, each having 4.72 lakh eggs to Muscat through Tuticorin port last week, he said.

Subsequently, other Arabian countries like Dubai and Qatar have also initiated talks for egg imports with the Indian poultry industry.

According to Valsan, in future, India would export at least 9 containers of eggs daily. The Indian poultry industry is getting prepared to increase the table egg production in the coming weeks with the hope of getting regular orders from other countries. The resumption of egg export after 6 months has led to he surging of egg prices, according to Valsan. Recently, the egg price has increased from Rs. 1.20 to Rs 1.30 and is likely to increase by 20 paise per egg in a month’s time.

India was exporting 3.6 lakh eggs every day, mainly to Gulf countries, prior to the outbreak.