Wednesday, 25 August 2010

KOGID rice mill construction starts


via Khmer NZ

Wednesday, 25 August 2010 15:00 Chun Sophal

THE South Korean company KOGID has started construction on a US$2.6 million rice-processing mill in Battambang province, company officials said yesterday.

The mill, in Ratanak Mondul district, will process rice to supply to local markets and for export.

Oung Savuth, manager of KOGID Cambodia Co Ltd, said that once complete, the mill would be able to process 400 tonnes of rice per day.

“We hope that the investment will play an important role in producing quality rice which is applicable to market demand both at present and in the future,” Oung Savuth said.

According to the company, the construction of the rice mill on approximately 3 hectares of land will be finished by January 2011.

Cheu Chheang, director of Battambang province’s Department of Industry, Mines and Energy, said the province already had more than 100 rice mills, but that they were not able to process rice to standardised quality yet.

“We welcome all investment projects which lead to the construction of standardised rice mills because the paddy storage in Battambang province has not had a modern rice mill yet,” he said.

Oung Savuth said that the rice mill was imported directly from South Korea and was very modern compared to those already operating in the province.

KOGID invested about $3 million in late 2009 to build a corn-drying plant capable of drying 400 tonnes of corn a day, in the same district.

The government released a new rice policy last Wednesday that guaranteed 50 percent of commercial bank lending to rice producers in a bid to increase Cambodia’s exports of the grain to 1 million tonnes by 2015.

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