While Saudi Arabia sets up its first sovereign wealth fund, ordinary Saudis are more preoccupied with the rising price of food. This is prompting the Saudi government to consider a new direction for foreign investment: buying farms in the poorer parts of the world.
Japan's big trading houses, which have enjoyed bumper years from betting on iron ore and metals, are getting into the food market, aiming to tap voracious demand in China and emerging economies.
Alarmed by exporting countries’ trade restrictions, importing countries have realised that their dependence on the international food market makes them vulnerable not only to an abrupt surge in prices but, more crucially, to an interruption in supplies.
A foodstuff consortium from Middle-East countries planning to investment some Rp14 trillion through Bin Laden Group in South-East Sulawesi province, a senior adviser said here on Monday.
A foodstuff consortium from Middle-East countries planning to investment some Rp14 trillion through Bin Laden Group in South-East Sulawesi province, a senior adviser said here on Monday.
The race by food-importing countries to secure farmland overseas to improve their food security risks creating a “neo-colonial” system, the United Nations’ top agriculture official, Jacques Diouf, has cautioned.
Kuwait is talking with Asian countries about securing food supplies and investing in agriculture as the Gulf state looks to diversify its sources of food, state news agency KUNA reported yesterday.
In Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, His Highness the Prime Minister od Kuwait’s visit was of great importance given the promising financial investment opportunities in those nations. One of the main topics discussed was food imports from these countries as a means for securing food supply, facilitating a Kuwaiti energy supply to them, as well as cooperation in oil exploration and the agricultural field.
Cru, a small specialist fund management firm, recently launched a Malawi-based fund called Africa Invest. The fund has made an initial investment of £2m in 2,000 hectares of land that’s producing paprika for western supermarkets. With land prices starting at £800 per hectare (compared to £10,000 in the UK) it’s relatively easy to amass large farms that can be upgraded with new technology, mechanisation and better production methods. According to Cru, annual returns on capital should exceed 30 to 40 per cent.
The company will conduct a feasibility study of the proposed land area, in the Merauke district of Indonesia’s Papua province, before making their final decision. “We have been looking at other locations that might be suitable but Indonesia is first on our list,” a spokesperson said.
Indonesia's Minister of Agriculture and other senior government officials Tuesday said they met with senior members of Saudi Arabia's Binladin Group to discuss the investment group's plans to spend at least $4 billion developing at least 500,000 hectares of Indonesian land for rice production.
The Chinese government is more and more worried over the control that overseas firms are exercising over a good portion of China’s food supply, and there is even some thought that the recent inflation might have been triggered by foreign food giants as they have expanded into every corner of China’s agriculture.
