Indian firm vows to invest more in agri-business in Pangasinan

• Source: http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?nid=3&rid=783239
• Wednesday, July 15, 2015

(PNA), RMA/LVM/LVMICUA/2005/RMA

ROSALES, Pangasinan, July 15 (PNA)--Prasad Seeds Philippines, Inc., an Indian agri-business firm, is expanding its newly-built seed processing complex here by allocating USD 15 million (Php 675 million) more in the project in the next five years.

The new investment will be on top of Prasad Seeds Php 450-million initial investment funneled into a corn seed processing facility that formally opened for operations on a five-hectare lot in Barangay Salvacion close to the border of Cuyapo, Nueva Ecija.

Karumanchi Prasad, chairman and managing director of India-based Prasad Seeds, and his strategic consultant , former Agriculture Secretary William Dar, revealed this in separate interviews after the complex’s inaugural rites.

Prasad said that the new investment would focus on processing quality palay seeds for the local and export markets. The initial investment was poured into a facility that dries, sorts out, classify, fumigate and package hybrid corn seeds produced by Syngerta in Binalonan and other eastern Pangasinan towns.

India, a SouthAsia country with 1.2 billion people , is one of the newest partners in the Asean plus five economic community that started pulling down all trade and investment barriers this year.

In his speech earlier in the day, the Indian investor projected that Pangasinan will become the seed capital of the Philippines and the country becoming the quality seed hub of the Asia-Pacific region if all stakeholders work together towards such end.

Prasad Seeds is the third seed company based in Pangasinan, coming behind Syngerta based in the town of Binalonan and East-West Seed based in the town of Tayug.

Syngerta is a multinational company whose Asian operations are based in Singapore while East-West is one of the largest hybrid vegetable seed growers and distributors in the country.

Dar said that Pangasinan was chosen as the operations base of Prasad because it has wide and fertile agricultural lands that can sustain economies of scale in quality seed production which can later be expanded to neighboring Tarlac and Nueva Ecija.

Speaking for Governor Amado T. Espino, senior provincial board member Alfonso Bince said that with board member Ranjit Ramos-Shahani , they would co-author and lead in the passage of a provincial ordinance granting a five-year exemption from real estate taxes to the pioneering seed processing complex.