Three large Vietnamese companies, Hoang Anh Gia Lai JSC (HAGL), Nutrition Food JSC and Vissan Limited Company, will launch a joint venture aimed at reducing domestic prices of dairy products.

According to an agreement signed by the three companies in Ho Chi Minh City on June 9, HAGL will spend 6.3 trillion VND (300 million USD) for building a dairy and beef cattle farm. Once completed by 2015, the farm will have 236,000 cows.

Beef cattle will be imported from Thailand and Australia while cows will be exported to Australia, New Zealand and the US.

The farm network will be located in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Nutrition Food JSC will build a milk factory in Tra Da Industrial Park in September this year with total investment capital of 5 trillion VND (238.09 million USD). The project will be carried out in two phases.

The 2014-15 phase will produce about 290 million litres of fresh milk per year, while the second phase will help raise the total capacity of milk to 500 million litres.

The factory's equipment will be imported from Germany and Sweden. It will process milk supplied by HAGL.

Meanwhile, Vissan Company will carry out its project on Vissan food processing industry complex in southern Long An province, with an investment capital of 2 trillion VND (95.238 million USD). The complex will have an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes and will sell all beef supplied by HAGL.

HAGL Chairman Doan Nguyen Duc said the first batch of 60,000 beef cattle from Thailand will be imported on June 16.-VNA