Browse Data and Analysis

Bite size local news, Post reports and activity summaries wrapped by ATO Hong Kong. In this issue: USA Pavilions Dazzle at Asia Fruit Logistica and Restaurant & Bar Trade Shows; “Night Vibes” Campaign Must be Affordable To Counter Residents Crossing the Border to Spend

The hotel, restaurant, and institutional (HRI) sector in South Africa is gradually beginning to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, but challenges remain due to frequent power outages, known as load shedding, and rampant food price inflation.

On August 1, 2023, Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture (COA) was transformed into the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA). MOA’s total workforce plans to increase from about 4,770 to 5,300 staff, and the administrative budget is expected to rise by TWD 8.3 billion (USD $260 million) to a total annual budget of TWD 158.9 billion (USD $5 billion).

Thailand’s export prices fell a further one percent as the Thai baht continues to weaken.

MY 2023/24 sunflowerseed production is forecast at 1.6 million metric tons (MMT), which is down nearly 20 percent year-over-year because of drought-related losses in Thrace, Turkey’s leading sunflower producing region.

Post maintains its estimate of Algeria’s wheat plated area at just over 2 million hectares for the entire country. For the MY 2024/25, Post projects production for wheat and barley to remain in line with the current MY of 2.7 million MT of wheat and 1.02 million MT of barley.

Since the beginning of 2023, the Turkish Lira (TL) has weakened by around 20 percent against the U.S. dollar. Despite the economic turmoil, demand for chicken meat is relatively stable, even with expected increased poultry market prices in correlation with increasing inflation.

FAS Manila adjusts marketing year (MY) 2024 raw sugar production down to 1.8 million metric tons, 100,000 metric tons (MT) below USDA Official. Declining sugarcane planting areas and weather disturbances including the ongoing El Niño are expected to affect sugar production.

On September 18, 2023, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) published draft Provisions on the Protection of Geographic Indication (GI) Products for public comment.

This is an update to a voluntary GAIN report KS2023-0013, Korea's Positive List System for Veterinary Drugs. Information on MRL violations and MRL changes has been added.

Based on the export pace through the first 10 months of the year, the 2022/23 rice export estimate is reduced from 3.7 to 3.4 million tons.

FAS China forecasts commercial production of in-shell walnuts to remain unchanged from the previous year at 1.4 MMT in MY 2023/24. Cold winter temperatures in Xinjiang damaged the almond crop this year.