Sapporo Holdings Ltd., one of Japan’s leading beer producers, plans to launch its beer production in Vietnam in early 2012, said Kyodo News.

If successful, this will be Sapporo ’s second overseas manufacturing foray after Canada .

For the move into Vietnam , Sapporo will buy a 65 percent stake in Kronenbourg Vietnam Ltd., a local fifty-fifty joint venture between leading Danish brewer Carlsberg Brewery A/S and Vietnam National Tobacco Corp., for 25.35 million USD, the news agency said.

It cited the Tokyo-based company as saying on Dec. 10 that Sapporo will build a brewery in a suburb of Ho Chi Minh City , the first of its kind to be built by a Japanese brewer in Vietnam where beer sales have been growing at an annual rate of more than 10 percent.

The joint venture will then be renamed Sapporo Vietnam Ltd. and plans to produce 12 million cases (one case is equivalent to 20,633-millilter bottles) in 2019, with sales projected at 10 billion yen (115 million USD)./.