Agriculture now main business for HAGL

Five years after beginning to invest in agriculture, Hoang Anh Gia Lai Joint Stock Company last Friday said the sector is now its major source of revenue and profit.

At its annual shareholders' meeting in HCM City, it said the sector accounted for 39 per cent of turnover and 59 per cent of earnings last year.


The company's profit was VND999 billion (US$47.5 million) on revenues of nearly VND2.8 trillion ($118 million).

Profits from rubber and sugarcane were VND165 billion and VND537 billion ($25.6 million) on revenues of VND241 billion and VND838 billion.

Real estate, which used to be its mainstay, contributed to only 3.2 per cent of its profit; others such as hydroelectricity, services, construction, and mining accounted for 0.9-20 per cent.

HAGL's turnover last year was almost 25 per cent below the target, and its chairman Doan Nguyen Duc, rated the second richest man on the Vietnamese stock exchange, attributed it to the company's restructuring.

He said it had sold six hydroelectricity plants in Viet Nam, sold stakes in Hoang Anh Gia Lai Timber Corporation, and pulled out of some real estate projects.

At the meeting, Nguyen Van Su, a director, created a stir by promising to resign if the company did not achieve a growth of 50 per cent in after-tax profit this year.

Duc said the company plans to raise cows and grow corn, rubber, oil palm, and sugarcane in Laos and Cambodia.

Duc backed Su, saying he too was confident because crops like corn, oil palm, and sugarcane in Laos and Cambodia would soon be harvested and yield large profits thanks to the use of advanced technologies