OREANDA-NEWS. December 7, 2011. Sojitz Corporation has entered the feed business in Cambodia by acquiring a 10% interest in Sichuan New Hope Agribusiness (Cambodia) Co., Ltd. (“New Hope (Cambodia)”), a feed manufacturer in Cambodia owned by New Hope Group Co., Ltd. (“New Hope Group”), China’s largest livestock and feed company.

New Hope (Cambodia) is located in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone in Phnom Penh, has capital of USD 6 million, has a production capacity of 200,000 tons of compound feed annually, and began production in May 2011. Sojitz is investing USD 600,000 (approximately 46 million yen). This is the first time that a Japanese company has entered the livestock compound feed production and sales business in Cambodia.
Demand for feed in Cambodia is growing steadily in conjunction with higher demand for meat, and is expected to double from approximately 1.2 million tons in 2008 to 2.5 million tons in 2014. New Hope (Cambodia) is considering an expansion of its plant to boost production capacity even further in the future and aims to become one of the Cambodia’s top makers of compound feeds.

Sojitz earlier established Vietnam-based Kyodo Sojitz Feed Co., Ltd. jointly with Kyodo Shiryo Co., Ltd. (Sojitz holds a 51% interest), and a plant is currently under construction with production scheduled to begin in 2013. In response to rising demand for raw materials for foodstuffs in conjunction with economic growth in Vietnam and Cambodia, Sojitz is supplying cost-competitive feed in the Mekong district with a focus on Cambodia and Vietnam through these feed companies and by making use of the Cai Mep Agriculture Port, ASEAN’s largest special-purpose grain port, which is owned by Interflour Vietnam Limited (IFV; Sojitz holds a 20% interest in IFV). Sojitz can meet detailed logistics needs in ASEAN by utilizing international ground logistics services in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, etc.).