December 11 2007, 10:08

"Russian project" will invest to Kuban vegetables

Trade house "Russian Project" declared yesterday about its intention to construct cannery in Abinskiy district of Krasnodarskiy Kray, and to create raw material base on the area more than 3,000 ha for this enterprise. The cost of the project implementation will amount to $70 mln., "Kommersant" informs.

Natalya Plikusova, General Director of Trade House "Russian Project" informed that the affiliated enterprise "Russian Project - South" was created for the company's project implementation in Krasnodar. The company purchased 160 ha of agricultural lands in Abinskiy district; there is a plan to locate cannery there. The company's expenses for the purchases of equipment, drip irrigation project and land documents issuing amounted to RUR 23.5 mln. on this stage. The implementation term of agrarian project is two years, the payback period is estimated to last for five years. The capacity of the processing enterprise will be 60 tons of vegetables per day.

"Our future plans is the production of canned cucumbers and tomatoes, and also green pea", Mrs. Plikusova told. "We understand that we entered the region with the developed agricultural processing structure, we are not able to compete with such giants like Bonduelle. Still, we are intended to find our niche in economy-class price segment".

To implement the project worth $70 mln., the trade house "Russian Project" intends to use exclusively own assets. In the beginning of the next year "Russian Project - South" plans to purchase around 3,200 ha of agricultural lands owned now by 800 sharers of LLC "Dyuna" (Abinskiy district).