Large corporations are pouring money into agriculture projects

Within days, a company responsible for the sales of Hoang Anh Gia Lai Agriculture’s products will present itself before the public with the task of exporting 300,000 tons of fresh fruit and processed fruit products, or 15,000 containers in 2019. 

Meanwhile, the construction of a fruit processing plant with the designed capacity of 120,000 tons per annum and an agriculture material manufacturing factory with the capacity of 200,000 tons per annum will kick off in Chu Lai IZ of Quang Nam province.

The plants are owned by Truong Hai Automobile (Thaco), the leading domestic automobile manufacturer, and Hoang Anh Gia Lai, owned by famous businessman Doan Nguyen Duc.

With total investment capital of VND3.425 trillion, the plants, expected to become operational in the first half of 2020, will allow for a closed fruit value chain in the Central Highlands and southern Laos.

Thaco began injecting money into agriculture in 2017, when it joined forces with Loc Troi Group to build a cereal agriculture development strategy for the northern delta.

The automobile manufacturer is pursuing large-scale closed production run on mechanization and automation and managed on digital platforms.

“After two years of investing in agriculture, we have realized that the potential in the field is great,” said Thaco’s president Tran Ba Duong. 

Vingroup, established as a real estate group, through its subsidiary VinEco, now owns 14 hi-tech farms throughout the country which provides 3,000 tons of clean farm produce through Adayroi.com and 1,800 VinMart and VinMart+ shops.

Hoa Phat, a steel manufacturer, began developing agriculture projects three years ago and now is the time for it to gain success, especially from husbandry and animal feed.

The finance report of the group showed that revenue from the field in 2018 saw a growth rate of 40 percent over the year before.

Its sales of animal feed products in 2018 increased by 150 percent, while the sales of cows for meat increased by twofold.

Analysts say that large industrial manufacturers are pouring money into agriculture as they need to seek a new driving force for their growth. They also note that new investors plan to ‘do large-scale hi-tech agriculture’ rather than small-scale projects.

Thaco, for example, is developing ‘no-land agriculture’, and will rely on technology. It will not have to worry about land access, weather and low profitability.

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