The Prime Ministers of Vietnam and Laos cut the ribbon to inaugurate the first phase of a fresh milk factory, one of the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia, in central Nghe An province on July 9.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and his Lao counterpart Thongsing Thammavong were in Nghe An to co-chaired a ceremony on July 9 marking the completion of a project on increasing and upgrading border markers along the two countries’ shared boundary.

The milk factory is invested by TH Group with a design capacity of 500,000 tonnes per year by 2017. The first phase of the factory will see 200,000 tonnes of fresh milk produced per year.

The factory is part of TH Group’s 1.2 billion USD project to develop large-scale dairy farms and milk processing industry. Besides the factory, the project’s first phase has also built farms raising 45,000 cows on 8,100ha of pasture to supply raw material.

The group aims to increase its cow herd to 137,000 heads by 2017, meeting half of the raw milk supply in the country.

Speaking at the event, PM Dung highly valued the company’s investment in producing and processing milk as well as investing in high-quality cows to ensure supply.

He said this it is in the right direction and in accordance with policies to encourage the food processing industry and use locally sourced materials.

The factory will create jobs for local people, reduce Vietnam ’s dependence on imported milk and promote Vietnam ’s dairy industry to the world, he added.

Earlier on the same day, the two Prime Ministers visited the rubber plantation of Nghe An Rubber Investment and Development JSC in Thanh Duc commune, the province’s Thanh Chuong district.-VNA