Indian egg hatcheries set to export 50 million eggs to Malaysia

India is on track to export a record 50 million eggs this month, helped by sales to Malaysia, where there have been severe shortages as many small-scale farmers were compelled to reduce production due to skyrocketing feed prices brought on by the conflict in the Ukraine.
The majority of India's egg customers are Middle Eastern nations like Oman and Qatar, but over the past several months, Indian hatcheries have received sizable orders from unexpected sources as production plummeted in some of the leading suppliers in the world. Malaysia, which used to export eggs to Singapore and other Asian nations, placed the largest such unforeseen order.
To secure egg supplies as prices rose to record highs, Malaysian Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Mohamad Sabu earlier this month visited Namakkal, the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where several leading hatcheries are based.
"For the first time, Malaysia is buying large quantities of eggs from India, and it seems that India's egg exports to Malaysia will remain strong during the first half of 2023," Sasti Kumar, joint managing director at Namakkal-based Ponni Farms, one of India's leading egg exporters, told media.
India shipped 5 million eggs to Malaysia in December, and will ship 10 million in January and up to 15 million in February, according Kumar.
The imports from India have helped Malaysia bring prices down from the record highs seen in late December. Having suffered a shortfall of 157 million eggs in November, the market gap was down to just one million in December, the Malaysian minister said in a statement earlier this week.