Bird's Nest 燕窝

choi

潘婕, 记者来鸿：大马燕窝的中国情结. BBC Chinese, Aug 1, 2012.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/si ... sia_bird_nest.shtml

, which is MODIFIED from

Jennifer Pak, RFID Technology Thwarts Bird's Nest Counterfeiters. BBC, May 28, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18193981

Note:
(a) Johor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johor
(section 1 Etymology)

* The BBC Chinese report talks about the location of Yanming (see (d) below): "我有机会到马来西亚南部毗邻新加坡的柔佛，去参观一座三层楼的厂房。"
柔佛州
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9F%94%E4%BD%9B%E5%B7%9E
IS the state of Johor.

(b) The report said, "A worker at the swiftlet farm carefully scrapes a small white bird's nest off a rafter."
(i) The rafter 椽 is depicted as purple in the illustration of
檁
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/檁
(ii) Bird's nest soup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird's_nest_soup
(The most heavily harvested nests are from the Edible-nest Swiftlet or White-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus) and the Black-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus maximus); Most nests are built during the breeding season by the male swiftlet over a period of 35 days)

Quote: "Hong Kong and the United States are the largest importers of these nests. * * * The nests were formerly harvested from caves, principally the enormous limestone caves at Gomantong and Niah in Borneo. With the escalation in demand these sources have been supplanted since the late 1990s by purpose-built nesting houses, usually reinforced concrete structures [a photo]* * * These nesting houses are normally found in urban areas near the sea, since the birds have a propensity to flock in such places. This has become an extraordinary industry, mainly based on a series of towns in the Indonesian Province of North Sumatra, which have been completely transformed by the activity. From there the nests are mostly exported to the markets in Hong Kong, which has become the centre of the world trade, though most of the final consumers are from mainland China. It has been estimated that the products now account for 0.5% of the Indonesian GDP, equivalent to about a quarter of the country's fishing industry.

(iii) Identification. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), undated.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/ ... identification.aspx
("It's easier than you might think to tell swifts, swallows and martins apart")

* The "swiftlet" is translated as 金丝燕 in the BBC Chinese report.

(c) The erport then said, "Safety concerns last July effectively halted all exports of bird's nests to China from Malaysia, the world's second biggest supplier of the delicacy."

I can not find authorative statistics. In the web there are two competing country rankings by production values: either
(i) Indonesia (80%), Thailand (10%), Malaysia (7%), or
(ii) Indonesia (80%), Malaysia (15%).

(d) The report mentioned "Yanming Resources's Chua Huai Gen."
(i) Yanming Resources SDN BHD  燕鸣资源有限公司
http://yanminggroup.com/
(ii) CHUA Huai Gen  蔡 淮根
(e) Skip to the bottom of the English report, for more about bird's nest.