DA Secretary William Dar (left), with Baladna independent board member Aidan Tynan, and DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez during the agreement signing recently.
Doha: Qatar and the Philippines have partnered for the establishment of a $500m integrated dairy facility in the latter through a memorandum of understanding (MOU).
The Philippines’ Departments of Agriculture (DA) and Trade Industry (DTI) partnered with Baladna Qatar Public Shareholding Company (QPSC). The agreement was held recently in Dubai, UAE between DA Secretary William Dar, DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez and Baladna Independent Board Member Aidan Tynan.
Secretary Dar said: “The DA, through the National Dairy Authority, fully support and welcome this new initiative as this will help jumpstart catalytic investments in the Philippine dairy industry to contribute to food security, local milk production and processing leading to agri-industrial development". Baladna is Qatar’s largest locally-owned food and dairy producer, supplying over 95 percent of the country’s fresh dairy products. The firm now owns over 24,000 Holstein cows on its 2.6 million square-metre facility with 40 state-of-the-art barns, has a daily capacity of producing up to 450 tonnes of fresh milk and juice products on a daily basis, and has more than 1,650 employees.
Baladna has expressed its interest in setting up a large-scale and fully integrated dairy facility in the Philippines designed to be climate-independent using world-class management systems.
The project will significantly increase local milk production by 120 million litres from the current milk production of 26.71 million litres. This will bring the Philippines’ total milk production to 146.71 million litres, thus contributing to addressing the local demand of 2,927.04 million litres, of which bulk is imported.
“The investments will be able to generate 2,000 new jobs during the initial phase of its first full year of operations, providing significant opportunities for domestic employment,” said Dar.
Baladna underscored that their main consideration for supporting the Philippine government is to level the playing field and foster domestic dairy production.
“DA has already identified five possible locations for the Baladna project and welcomes the Baladna team in the next few weeks for the site visit in the Philippines. DA will continuously provide the needed support to fast track the implementation of this project in coordination with DTI and other partner agencies,” Dar said.
