BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

30/08/2007

International Finance Corporation and Detroit Investments company invest $20 mln. in juice production in Belarus

International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Detroit Investments company plan to invest $20 mln. in the creation of juice production capacities in Belarus. Oskar Chemerinskiy, the Director of Agri-Business Department, IFC, shared this information during the press conference in Minsk.

The portal Agrobel.by informs, IFC will provide technical and consulting assistance to implement this project in order to its complete correspondence to the global requirements of food safety, ecological and social standards.

"IFC has already agreed to provide a loan worth to $8 mln. to create juice production in Belarus", he said. According to Sergey Levin, the representative of Detroit Investments company, on the first stage the plant capacity will be 1 mln. hectoliters per year. "This volume exceeds twice the total volume of juice consumption in Belarus recorded past year", he observed. The equipment is planned to be supplied to the plant in October 2007.

Juice production should start in the end of 2007. S. Levin informed that at the present moment the assortment of juices and juice-containing drinks is under development in order to be produced on this plant.

"Now we are studying flavor preferences of Belarus inhabitants, as well as the innovation movement observed in the world", he added. On the first stage Detroit Investments plans to supply products to the inner market only; they have future plans concerning juice exports.

In the whole, S. Levin stressed that a new juice plant in Bobruysk will become "the first production capacity of this type in Belarus, which fully corresponds to the criteria of import substitution".

Source:

http://www.lol.org.ua/eng/showart.php?id=49241