The Agriculture and Cooperative Committee pays a visit to the Republic of Singapore with the focus on the following objective:
- Understand the import procedure for Thai fruits and vegetables;
- Study the local consumer preference and acceptance of Thai fruits and vegetables quality.
This Mission is led by Mr. Chada THAISED, Chairman, with a total of 16 officials. The Thailand Trade Office planned this official visit for the group to visit the following offices during the 3 days visit:
1) Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA); (Government Department that inspect and approval all imports of food products)
2) NTUC Fairprice Co-Operative Limited (Singapore leading supermarket chain);
3) Singapore Fruits and Vegetables Importers and Exporters Association.
Visit to Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA)
AVA is the only authority that will regulate all imports of food products. AVA concerns on the safety of food imported by importers in Singapore. All fruits and vegetables imported will undergo inspection and sampling tests before allowing to be released for distribution and selling. All fresh fruits and vegetables must not contain any residue of pesticides or harmful contaminants exceeding the permitted levels under the Singapore Food Regulations and also under preview of joint FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius Commission.
Major types of fruits and vegetables imported from Thailand in 2009 are as follows:
Fresh Fruits — Mango, coconut, longan, guava, durian etc.
Fresh Vegetables — Taro, small chilli, coriander, tomato, ginger, small young corn etc.
The import of fresh fruits from Thailand is considered very good as Thai farmers and the co-operatives have done good effect in ensuring quality produce. However, vegetables from Thailand face pesticide residues problem on occasional seasons. The commonly detected pesticide residues in vegetables from Thailand are:
- Chlorpyrifos, Ethion, EPN, Triazofos, Profenofos etc and small chilli and coriander vegetables are commonly found with either chemical.
All fresh vegetables that are found unsafe for consumption after the AVA test sampling will be destroyed as they are deemed as unfitted for consumption. Once destroy, Singapore importers will be fined and if repeated offence occured, importers will be banned for importing. This will have negative impact on Thai export of fresh produce.
Visit to NTUC Fairprice Co-Operative Limited (Fairprice)
Fairprice is the leading Hypermarket and supermarket who directly import fresh fruits and vegetables from many countries over the World. Fairprice has contract farming in Thailand for various fresh organic vegetables and this is under their house brand “PASAR ORGANIC”. This Hypermarket and supermarket chain stores imports directly various products from many different countries and established strong relationship with foreign embassies in Singapore.
The farms in Thailand that are under the Fairprice contract produces vegetables such as sweet corn, long beans, ladies finger, kalian, mini cucumber, asparagus etc with total over 30 varieties. Fairprice vegetable import has grown to S$3 million yearly and it’s continued to grow in import value.
Fairprice price has one of the modern cold-chain to maintain and distribute all its fresh fruits and vegetables to ensure freshness and quality right to the individual stores. In total, Fairprice has 3 Hypermarkets, over 60 supermarkets, and over 40 convenience stores Island wide. Its group sales turnover is estimate at S$2 billion for the year 2009.
Singapore Fruits and Vegetables Importers and Exporters Association (SFVIEA)
Members of SFVIEA are importers and exporters of all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Most of the fresh fruits, vegetables and dried food imported into Singapore come in via 3 transport mode: Sea freight, air freight and road transport. Most of the importers will import food — fruits, vegetables and dried food, through road transport via Malaysia border. As this is faster mode of transportation and its cheaper compare to air and sea freight. Most of food containers coming to Singapore will transit at Hat Yai Center from various parts of Thailand, and then using Malaysia Expressway to truck down to Singapore.
Due to overwhelming supply of fresh fruits, vegetables and dried food from Thailand to Singapore via Malaysia, Malaysia authority has imposed a trade barrier on this export to Singapore, in particular in terms of quota. This quota system has been implemented more than 10 years ago and many importers in Singapore, especially in the fresh fruits, vegetables and dried food industry has voiced that this will reduce Thailand export towards the year end when the quota has been used up.
In brief, every product has a quota by weight and normally, towards month of October every year, the quota will be used up. Then, importers of that particular product will pay extra 10-20% in transport cost for every container transport down to Singapore via Malaysia Expressway. This will greatly reduce export of Thai products and SFVIEA has informed us to express their concern to removing or lower the cost of Thai imports.
In fact, members of SFVIEA expressed that many potential products are suitable to export to Singapore but due to the quota system imposed by Malaysia Authority, importers would prefer to source from other countries.
Source : http://www.depthai.go.th