Vietnamese rubber industry is moving ways to fulfill its goal at 100,000 hectares of rubber in neighboring Laos by 2010, who has recently allowed Thais and Chinese corporations to do the same.
The plantation program costs totally around VND1.24 trillion (US$77.5 million).
As of date, the industry has carried out five projects in Laos, planting around 58,000ha of rubber in four provinces of Champassak, Salavan, Atopu and Sekong.
Since July 2005, the Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG) has invested US$30 million to plant 10,000 hectares of rubber trees in the Champasac province. To complete the project, VRG has established seven member enterprises which have reached a charter capital of VND100 billion (US$6.25 million).
Meanwhile, Vietnam-Laos Rubber Joint Stock Company said it had planted 8,000 hectares of rubber trees and is expecting to finish planting a further 10,000 hectares by 2008, a project that is funded by 100 per cent Vietnamese investment capital.
The joint stock company has also agreed to rent agricultural land from Laos in 50 year blocks. In the seventh year of the project, the company will start to harvest rubber latex and then pay tax to only the Laotian Government at a rate of US$9/ha/year.
A plantation project to plant 4,900ha of rubber trees and establish a rubber processing factory, build houses, schools and streets has recently begun in Laos with investment from the Quasa-Geruco Company. 2,300 people, 90 per cent of whom are Laotian, have been employed to work on the project with a monthly salary of VND2.5 million (approximately US$156).
Ho Van Ngung, general director of the Vietnam-Laos Rubber Joint Stock Company said many corporations find Laos a good place to expand rubber business because Laos has a cheaper labor force, the weather is more suited to growing rubber trees and most importantly, investment in Laos can bring in bigger benefits than in Vietnam.
But Vietnamese enterprises planting rubber in Laos will be facing with harsh competition from Chinese and Thais corporations who see potentials in Laos, said Nguyen Minh Khan, an official from the Vietnam Rubber Group.
“Vietnamese corporations, thus, have to speed up the rate of plantation,” he stressed.
Vietnam is interested in the land of Champassak, Salavan, Atopu and Sekong provinces of Laos, currently used for growing vegetables and forest trees.
Therefore, Vietnam rubber corporations need to produce a more reasonable compensation plan for the landowners if they want to entice them to change their land-use. They must also develop a better investment strategy if they wish to earn the trust from local people, helping them to develop their country’s economy.
Early this year, China’s southwestern Yunnan province signed an agreement with the government of Laos to develop 2.5 million mu (166,666 hectares) of rubber plantations in four northern Laos provinces bordering China between the period 2006 to 2015.
(Liberated Saigon)
Vietnamese
