South Korea chicken giant eyes Kingdom
PPCBank to issue second round of bonds
South Korea-owned Phnom Penh Commercial Bank Plc (PPCBank) announced it will list a second bond offering on the Cambodia Secur i t i e s Exchange (CSX) on Thursday to raise another $10 million.
The second listing comes more than five months after PPCBank’s first round was officially issued in late April. That effort also raised $10 million.
CSX vice-chairman Jong Weon Ha toldThe Post PPCBank will issue a total of KHR 40 billion (approximately $10 million) in bonds with a maturity of three years and a coupon rate of 6.5 per cent per year.
He said all bonds were fully subscribed on September 21 and the bank will list these bonds on the CSX on October 9.
“I think it is very normal that a securities-listed company raises funds from the capital market more than once.
“With the success of the second bond issuance, PPCB is proving the stock market is a rich source of funding that allows companies to raise additional capital several times to support the rapid development and expansion of their business, rather than waiting for their profits to expand the business, which may be slow,” he said.
Han Kyung-tae, the managing director of Yuanta Securities (Cambodia) Plc, the company managing PPCBank’s bond issuance project, said the first PPCBank listing in April – in the middle of the health crisis – was a great achievement for both the bank and the development of the Kingdom’s capital markets.
SOUTH KOREAN-BASED chicken meat distributor Harim Corporation has expressed interest in investing in Cambodia to expand its business in the region, according to Cambodian Ambassador to South Korea Long Dimanche.
Dimanche said the company is the top chicken distributor in Korea with 70 per cent market share, supplying an average of 650,000 chickens per day and 1.3 million per day in the summer.
“The company has invested heavily in technology and keeping the quality of the meat fresh, and they will consider studying investment possibilities in Cambodia. I requested they seek the opportunity to shelter an animal feed processing factory in Cambodia for re-export supplying to farms in South Korea,” Dimanche said.
Cambodia Livestock Raisers Association director Srun Pov welcomed the Korean company’s interest in investing in Cambodia. He said investment will bring many benefits to Cambodia if the company invests in chicken farms for export to the Korean market.
“Raising chickens is not very profitable because raising chickens for meat in our local market is in excess of demand, but if they invest in a chicken farm to produce and export to Korea, it will be a good thing to create job opportunities and a market for raw materials for animal feed production. We support it,” he said.
According to Pov, local market demand for chicken is between 120,000 and 130,000 chickens on average per day, but the supply of chicken exceeds the demand.
Other meat products are a different story.
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Veng Sakhon said at an agricultural contract signing ceremony last week the Ministry of Agriculture is striving to encourage aquaculture farmers to seize opportunities for exports to China.
He said China is the largest market for agricultural products, while China is also looking at meat imports from Asian countries.
“We will send a letter to the Chinese government confirming Cambodia’s ability to export beef to the Chinese market,” he said.
According to ministry data, Cambodians consumed 290,000 tonnes of meat in 2019, while the supply was only 240,000 tonnes.
The ministry plans to boost meat production to 335,000 tonnes by 2030 to fill shortages and reduce imports. Of total meat production, chicken and duck accounted for 20 per cent, beef 27 per cent and pork 57 per cent.
Total meat production was 45 million heads last year, an increase of 3.47 per cent compared to 2018. Of the total, 2.77 million were cows, 2.18 million were pigs and 40.39 million were chickens.
The ministry plans to increase livestock production by three per cent per year from 240,000 tonnes in 2019 to 270,000 tonnes by 2023, and the proportion of commercial livestock farms will increase by 30 per cent by 2023.