Vietnam eyes on Cambodia land for more trouble for Cambodians

Vietnamese rubber manufacturers are bouncing into neighbouring countries due to a lack of suitable land at home.

State-run Daklak Rubber Company, or Dakruco, recently won a licence for its $10 million rubber plantation project in the north-eastern region of Cambodia, close to Vietnam’s Dak Nong and Dak Lak provinces.

It is the company’s second overseas plantation following one in Laos.

Dakruco director Huynh Van Khiet said the Cambodia-based project initially aimed to cultivate 1,000 hectares of rubber trees and build a small-scale rubber latex processing factory.

“We are quickly completing procedures to take over the land in Cambodia so that the plantation of the first 1,000ha will be finished by the end of this year,” Khiet said.

Capitalised at $32 million, Dakruco’s Laos investment project started in 2005, aiming to plant 10,000ha of rubber trees and 3,000ha of cashew and cacao trees. The construction of a 5,000 tonne capacity rubber factory is incorporated in the project and the factory will later be expanded to a 10,000 tonne capacity.

“Investment formalities differentiate from each country. The Cambodian Government would like to see our project’s effectiveness before allowing us further land,” he said.

Regarding Dakruco’s project in Laos, Khiet said by the end of this year 6,000ha of rubber trees would be planted and the bulk could be harvested in early 2010.

Laos’ more fertile land and favourable climate helped reduce the growth period of rubber trees from seven years if planted in Vietam to five years.

“We are also building the latex processing factory in Laos in 2009,” Khiet said, adding that the factory would help Dakruco raise its annual export value by 20 per cent from $28.1 million last year.

Similarly, state-run Vietnam Rubber Group (Geruco) which is Vietnam’s leading rubber producer with 50 per cent of the country’s rubber plantation area and 70 per cent of the country’s latex output, is also accelerating the group’s investment projects in Laos and Cambodia.

A Geruco source said that by the end of this year, the group would cultivate 8,000ha of a 10,000ha rubber plantation in the southern region of Laos. The $25 million project is 200 kilometres from Vietnam’s Quang Tri province.

The source also said the Cambodian Government had allowed Geruco to study 180,000ha for the possible cultivation of rubber trees in Cambodia, with the first 10,000ha lot expected to begin plantation by 2007.

Vietnam is the world’s sixth largest rubber producer and fourth largest rubber exporter, behind Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia. The country’s rubber plantation area has expanded to 450,000ha since rubber trees were brought to Vietnam more than 100 years ago.

The nation’s annual rubber latex output is estimated at 400,000 tonnes, 80 per cent of which is exported and 20 per cent was domestically used. China is the biggest importer of Vietnam’s rubber latex. A robust increase of 25 per cent in rubber latex price, from $1,800 per tonne last year, is making local rubber firms profitable.


By Hoang Mai