Vietnam

8Natural gas exporter Qatar and Vietnam have set up a US$1 billion fund to invest in sectors including agriculture. Sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority will provide 90% of the fund's equity, Gulf Times reported, citing Phung The Long, Vietnam's Ambassador to Doha. "We have exchange ideas about setting up an animal farm for breeding cattle and lambs," The Long said.

Gas exporter Qatar and Vietnam have set up a $1 billion fund (56 million pounds) to invest in sectors including agriculture, a Qatar-based newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Qatar and Vietnam have signed an agreement to set up a joint fund with a capital of $1bn to facilitate investments in both countries. Phung The Long, ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Vietnam in Doha, said Qatar’s contribution to the fund, through Qatar Investment Authority, would be $900mn and the balance by Vietnam.

A UK-based agricultural company, Transformation Agric-Tech Limited, has signed a 30-year Memorandum of Understanding with Ndi Okereke Abam, a rural community in Arochukwu Council area of Abia state for an agricultural project.

Qudra Holding plans to buy about 400,000 hectares of land in the Middle East, Africa and the Far East by the first quarter of 2009 to boost its agriculture operations, reported The National.

Three new investment funds controlled by prominent Gulf investors will sink at least US$2.8 billion (Dh10.3 bn) into infrastructure, agriculture and hospitality projects in the Middle East and South Asia.

Al Qudra Holding, the Abu Dhabi-based investment company, plans to acquire roughly 400,000 hectares of land in the Middle East, East Africa and Far East by the end of the first quarter of next year in a major expansion of its agricultural operations.

A United Kingdom agro-based firm, Transfor-mation Agrictech has said plan are in the pipeline to tackle the lingering food crisis in four states of Abia, Rivers, Delta and Ebonyi, through by revolutionalised agriculture, which would culminate in the massive production of rice and cassava for both domestic use and export purposes.

The United Arab Emirates is seeking to invest in agricultural projects in Kazakhstan as part of its efforts to secure food supplies.

President of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed, has said that in order to secure food supply for the country, the government wants to invest in farmland in Kazakhstan

The UAE is actively looking at acquiring farmland in Vietnam, Cambodia, Africa and South America in an effort to ensure the availability of food stocks, according to the UAE Minister of Economy.

The Rivers State Government has reiterated its resolve to create an enabling environment to enhance rice production and processing, as well as promote and protect other agricultural business interests in the state.