Business

Editor: Bruce Meng
27 Oct 2008 09:05:53 GMT

BEIJING, Oct 27 – The parent of New Hope Agribusiness Co, China’s largest feed producer, plans to leverage Beijing’s new pro-agriculture policies to rapidly expand its pork, chicken and milk production.

"We will invest more than one billion yuan ($146 million) in our agriculture business in 2008, and will increase that next year," New Hope Group chairman, Liu Yonghao, told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

The company is expecting the new investment will help double revenues over the next five years, Liu said, noting that New Hope’s board must first approve the financing plan.

"In five years we want to reach 100 billion yuan ($14.6 billion) in sales," said Liu, whose group is expecting to reach about 45 billion yuan in revenues this year.

China announced far-reaching rural development plans earlier this month that would give farmers more freedom in how they use their land, with the aim to double rural disposable income by 2020 while channelling more investment into agriculture.

New Hope is also looking at overseas acquisition opportunities, but Liu said domestic expansion in the group’s core agriculture business would be the focus of its investments.

The company is also aiming to be China’s leading producer of fresh milk in five years, and has taken initial steps for a possible acquisition of Sanlu Group, the company at the heart of a milk powder scandal that killed four infants and hospitalized thousands more.

But Sanlu has pending legal liabilities from the scandal and a tarnished brand that make any acquisition complicated, said Liu.