Readying poultry sector for global export market

FE Team | Published: January 30, 2026 21:29:32 | Updated: January 31, 2026 13:49:55

The country's poultry industry, despite being a leading agro-industrial sector--- which meets the entire domestic demand for poultry meat and eggs, draws a large amount of investment (to the tune of Tk 400 billion) and employs a huge workforce--- is yet to gain a foothold in the international poultry market. Poultry industry insiders and experts are learnt to have blamed this failure mainly on the lack of proper policy and fiscal support, volatility in the domestic poultry market, absence of standard internationally recognized certification, inadequate cold chain infrastructure and high production costs. All these result in the loss of competitive edge of the local poultry products, to name but a few of the bottlenecks.
The government as claimed by a high government official, is encouraging poultry farmers to adopt good farming practices so they could scale the sector up for producing exportable poultry meat and processed products to carve out a niche in the international market. Though, the government has recently formulated a poultry development policy, an official of the department of livestock services (DLS) has admitted that the policy required additional features to enable it to provide fiscal incentives to the sector and thereby stimulate its growth and export prospects. While appreciating the suggestions to strengthen the poultry industry's export potential, the point is to provide the urgently required fillip to the sector through getting the required improvements at the policy level. Now the government needs to consider it an emergency to address the poultry industry's structural bottlenecks and avoid being sidelined in the race to gain a toehold in the global poultry market where the neighbouring China and India have already made significant inroads.
When it comes to processed poultry, Thailand has the lead with 26.3 per cent share of global supply and Vietnam making it to the top as a regional player as supplier of breeding chickens. It is important to note at this point that as one of the biggest consumers of halal meat, Bangladesh's domestic production of the same is also equally large. So far as halal meat's global market is concerned, it is learnt to be expanding fast. In that case, Bangladesh could at least have secured its position in the Middle Eastern markets where Thailand already has its strong presence in UAE, for instance, by increasing its poultry export there fivefold in 2025. Vietnam is also moving ahead in that market with its halal products in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The factor that accelerated their entry in the Middle Eastern markets is reportedly their having obtained halal certification. Shouldn't Bangladesh, given its traditionally close relation with those countries, have already secured such certification enabling it to export halal poultry products in those markets? But, in that case, like Vietnam and Thailand, Bangladesh, too, will be required to invest in acquiring meat processing technologies as well as biosecurity standards so as to ward off bird diseases including avian flu. Notably, frequent outbreaks of avian flu have forced closure of many SMEs, that employ most workers, in the sector.
So, what is important is to address the issues that factor as the main obstacles to export, especially of halal raw meat in those markets. Evidently, establishing the required standards at the earliest would help acquire the necessary halal certification. While doing what is required to be done, the poultry industry, in the same vein, needs to shift its focus away from live bird market, which is limiting its potential for exporting processed meat.