Thai agri group to expand operations in PHL

Thailand’s largest agricultural corporation, the Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group), is investing USD 2 billion to expand operations in the Philippines over the next five years to produce pork and chicken both for the local and export market. (Photo: Charoen Pokphand Group – C.P. Group/ Facebook)

MANILA—Thailand’s largest agricultural corporation, the Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group), is investing USD 2 billion to expand operations in the Philippines over the next five years to produce pork and chicken both for the local and export market.

In a statement, Department of Agriculture (DA) Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said CP Group is already operating in the country mainly in the Luzon area, but it would like to expand its operations to the Visayas and Mindanao where the threat of typhoons is less.

Piñol said the hog and chicken production project of CP Group will be divided into 10 modules utilizing about 6,000 hectares per module for the production of corn and soybeans to be used in its feed production.

This would mean a huge market for the country’s corn farmers and the introduction of soybeans production to the Philippines, he said.

An estimated 2,000 workers will be employed by the new CP Group operations.

The DA informed President Rodrigo Duterte that a Technical Working Group will be organized to assist the CP Group in identifying the areas where their new operations would be established.

President Duterte, in a meeting with CP Group officials led by its Chairman, Dhanin Chearavanont, in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, welcomed the planned investment of the Thai corporation.

Chearavanont said CP Group has decided to pour in more investments in the Philippines because of its distinction as the only country in the whole of Asia free from food and mouth disease (FMD) and avian influenza or bird flu.

The Chief Executive initially suggested the provinces of Bukidnon, Saranggani, North Cotabato, Maguindanao, Zamboanga del Norte, Agusan del Sur and Del Norte as the possible sites for the CP Group investments.