Organic fertiliser company looks towards the AEC
Organic fertiliser company looks towards the AEC
A local organic fertiliser company, Chanthanom Agricultural Promotion & Import-Export Co Ltd, plans to cooperate with a major Thai fertiliser company on production capacity improvement ahead of the Asean Economic Community (AEC) in 2015.
“We expect to start production capacity improvement by the end of this year,” said Ms Chanthanom Sisavath, a representative of the company.
“Currently we are continuing preparations and will have more detail on cooperation, including financial sources, as we require billions of Lao kip,” Ms Chanthanom said on Friday.
She said the two companies will have business cooperation and hope to hold shares of about 50 percent each.
Chanthanom Agricultural Promotion & Import-Export Co Ltd has operated an organic fertiliser factory for 10 years now, based in Naxaythong district, Vientiane.
It signed a business cooperation agreement with the major Thai fertiliser company, Pakphoom, in June last year after seeing that their organic fertiliser production was not meeting quality standards and so sales were slumping.
“So we want to cooperate with an experienced operator that has more modern production machines.”
Chanthanom hopes Pakphoom will add more production machines at her existing plant to expand production and ensure a higher quality product.
“If we can do that we will able to produce for supply to Thailand,” she said. Currently Pakphoom produces fertiliser and supplies the Thai market as well as exporting to Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam.
It believes that if the plant starts production in 2015 in Laos, it will be able to export to big countries such as China.
The plant will be able to produce three kinds of fertilisers, including regular, organic and liquid varieties. “We will also produce organic insect pesticide,” she said.
Pakphoom agreed to business cooperation with the Lao organic fertiliser producer because Laos has a rich source of raw materials and also good supply to neighbouring countries.
The raw materials include residue from pressed sugarcane and leftover beer production and sediment.
Laos is the first country that Pakphoom, which has a production capacity of 1,500 tonnes per day, decided to expand production to ahead of the AEC at the end of next year.
Chanthanom said the joint business in Laos will help the local farmers source quality fertiliser at a cheaper price than the imported product.
The arrival of the AEC will transform Asean into a region with a free flow of goods, services, investment, skilled labour and capital.
In the AEC Blueprint, Asean member states agreed to reduce tariffs, improve frameworks for trade, better enforce compliance standards and progressively open national service sectors up to cross-border supply and foreign investment.
vientiane times
