A corner of Dalat Hasfarm shop in HCM City. (dalathasfarm.com.vn) Hanoi (VNA) - The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on December 1signed loan agreements worth 20 million USD with Agripacific Holdings (APH) andKunming Hasfarm Flowers (KHF) to develop high-value horticulture in Vietnam,China and Indonesia.
ADB will lend the equivalent of 15 million USD in US dollars and Japaneseyen to APH -- a major grower of cut flowers in Asia -- and equivalent of 5million USD in Chinese yuan, to KHF, APH’s main subsidiary for operations inChina.
Martin Lemoine, Agribusiness Investment Unit head at ADB’s Private SectorOperations Department, said agricultural development was the key to eradicatingpoverty and creating conditions for sustainable and equitable growth indeveloping Asia.
ADB’s financing will help APH scale up and transfer its successful businessmodel built through the introduction of climate-controlled greenhousetechnology and a vertically-integrated business geared towards domestic andexport markets. This will help expand the flower business in the threecountries. The model will also be replicated for sustainable vegetableproduction in Vietnam.
Under the terms of ADB’s financing, APH has committed to implement a genderaction plan that will increase the proportion of women employees to 65 percentand the proportion of women in management and supervisory positions to 63 percentby 2020.
APH is a major grower of cut flowers in Asia, with some 350ha of farms andaround 3,000 employees. Since its creation in 1992, APH has developed highlyefficient greenhouse operations in Vietnam’s Da Lat, a retail distributionnetwork throughout Vietnam under the brand name "Dalat Hasfarm", awholesale distribution business in Japan (Greenwings Japan), and since 2014,has operated in China. Expansion to Indonesia began in 2016.-VNA
