On 3 April 2012, Thailand's Agricultural Affairs Office in Belgium notified its Minister of Agriculture that the EU’s Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health reached a consensus to reopen the imports of Thai frozen uncooked chicken, beginning on 1 July 2012. Thailand’s uncooked chicken has been banned since 23 January 2004 when an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) bird-flu was detected.

Trade sources reported that the EU directives on the decision should complete the required legislative process by early May. The EU allocates Thailand a quota of 92,610 metric tons of its total quota of 264,245 metric tons for uncooked salted poultry meat (EU HS code 02109939). The in-quota tariff rate is 15.4 per cent while the out-of-quota rate will be 1,300 €/ton.

A few large export-oriented chicken processing plants have indicated that Thailand would be able to export 50,000 metric tons of uncooked chicken meat to the EU in the second half of 2012 (1 July-31 December). FAS/Bangkok is closely monitoring this situation and will update developments as these occur. If this forecast results, the estimate production in 2012 will increase to 1.47 MMT, a growth of 9 percent over the 2011 level.