The government will pursue a $500-million integrated dairy facility in partnership with Baladna Qatar Public Shareholding Company (QPSC), the Department of Agriculture (DA) said Monday.
The DA and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) were able to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Baladna QPSC during a business engagement held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates recently.
“The DA, through the National Development Authority [NDA], fully support and welcome this new initiative as this will help jumpstart catalytic investments in the Philippine dairy industry to contribute to food security, local milk production and processing leading to agri-industrial development,” Agriculture Secretary William D. Dar said in a news statement.
In his presentation before prospective investors from the gulf country, Dar explained that the majority of the Philippines’ annual dairy requirement is imported.
“In 2020, the Philippine dairy industry was characterized by increasing local milk production and decreasing imports and exports of milk and dairy products. The local milk production reached 26.71 million liters, an increase of 9.5 percent from 24.38 million liters in 2019,” he said.
Baladna QPSC’s interests include livestock raising and production of dairy products such as milk, yogurt, cheese labneh, cream, dessert, juices and animal fertilizers, according to the DA.
The DA added that Baladna QPSC is Qatar’s largest locally-owned food and dairy producer, accounting for over 95 percent of the country’s fresh dairy products. The DA explained that the company now owns more than 24,000 Holstein cows in its 2.6 million square-meter facility with 40 state-of-the-art barns. The company’s dairy production line has a daily capacity of up to 405 metric tons (MT) of fresh milk and juice products.
“Baladna has expressed its interest in setting up a large-scale and fully integrated dairy facility in the Philippines designed to be climate-independent using world-class management systems,” DA said.
DA added that the project will increase local milk production by 120 million liters from the current milk production of 26.71 million liters.
“This will be bringing the Philippines’ total milk production to 146.71 million liters, thus contributing to addressing the local demand of 2,927.04 million liters, of which bulk is imported,” Dar said.
“The investments will be able to generate 2,000 new jobs during the initial phase of its first full year of operations, providing significant opportunities for domestic employment,” Dar added.
DA said Baladna QPSC’s main consideration in investing in the Philippines is to “level the playing field and foster domestic dairy production.”
“Meanwhile, the support of DTI, through the Board of Investment [BOI], is through the facilitation of the availment of incentives under the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises [CREATE] law, which may also be extended to manufacturers who will be sourcing locally their inputs,” DA said.
DA said it has already identified five possible locations for the Baladna QPSC project. The department added that it is already ready to welcome Baladna QPSC’s team for a site visit in the Philippines in the next few weeks.
“The DA will continuously provide the needed support to fast track the implementation of this project in coordination with DTI and other partner agencies,” Dar said.