SE Asian food market seen worth $60 billion by 2010

SE Asian food market seen worth $60 billion by 2010

CANBERRA (Reuter): Southeast Asia's food and agricultural product market has the potential to treble in size to US$60 billion annually by 2010, according to an Australian government report released yesterday.

The value of the region's food market doubled in size in the 1980s to $19 billion in 1992, the report from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's East Asia Analytical Unit said.

"If this rate of expansion is maintained for this decade and the next, this market will be worth around $60 billion (in 1991 U.S. dollar terms) by the year 2010," the report said.

The region's fast economic growth and a projected rise in the population to over 615 million by 2010 are pushing up demand for food and agricultural products, it said.

The region's population is currently 450 million.

The report defined the Southeast Asian market as comprising Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Growth in the region's annual per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to around $800-$2,200 has increased consumption of traditional food such as rice and has also changed patterns of food consumption, the report said.

"As per capita incomes rise in Southeast Asia, people are tending first of all to eat more of the traditional primary staple, rice, and less of traditional secondary staples, cassava, sweet potatoes and maize," it said.

"Then to shift towards an alternative staple, wheat, more fruit and vegetables, and more animal products like meat fish and dairy."

Finally as incomes rise further consumption of both traditional and alternative staple foods will fall and animal products and higher value processed foods will rise.

This change in food consumption patterns would strengthen the already established trend in Southeast Asia for increased food imports.

"Many of the goods subject to increasing demand -- such as wheat, beef, dairy products, temperate vegetables and fruit -- are ones in which Southeast Asia is either a non-traditional or minor producer."

From 1981 to 1992, the Southeast Asian region's share of world wheat grain imports increased from 3.8 to 5.4 percent. Annual wheat imports rose from 3.6 million tons to six million tons.