The resident of the advance development zone 'Khabarovsk', agricultural JGC Evergreen will increase the volume of greenhouse produce up to 6 thousand tons per year. As a result of the introduction of the third phase of innovative greenhouses, the Russian-Japanese company will fully satisfy the demand of the region dwellers for organic vegetables.
As of now cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce, radishes, greenery under the brand 'New Day' are sold in four branded shops of the agricultural company and the shops of several retail chains in Khabarovsk.
According to the General Director of the enterprise Mr. Tomoyuki Igarashi, the company is planning to compete with analogous products from China in quality and price. "Close proximity to the retailer allows to supply fresh vegetables to the stores as soon as they are ripe. That make a big difference in comparison with the remote suppliers whose product ripens on the way. Our mission is to give customers the joy of a quality product", said the General Director of the company.
According to the chief agronomist of JGC Evergreen Ms Svetlana Gudkova, the main quality control is carried out in the laboratory, and the goal is to make sure that the vegetables do not contain nitrates and heavy metals.
The city dwellers give tribute to the crops of the Russian-Japanese greenhouses. "For a couple of weeks pickles with the logo 'New Day' were not on sale. The customers purchased the produce brought in from the Amur region, from Sakhalin, China, it is not the same", says the resident of Khabarovsk Ms. Olga Koval. "By the way, more than once I faced the fact that sellers tried to pass off their produce as the one by the Evergreen company."
The manufacturer has protected its brand from the counterfeit: the package of vegetables contains a bar code and a label with the indication of the variety, which is damaged when the package is open. It is impossible to attach it back.
A few years ago the local producers satisfied the need for the fresh greenery only by 10%, said the head of the Department of Food Industry and Food Resources of Khabarovsk administration Mr. Oleg Fomin. Since 2015, the real greenhouse boom has started, and self-sufficiency of the city in vegetables rose up to 60%. The main role here was played by the company JGC Evergreen, which became the first foreign resident of the advance development zone 'Khabarovsk'.
"The main reason for our entering the advance development zone is the significant tax and other preferences granted to the residents. This allowed the reduction of production cost significantly and make the produce more accessible to the consumer", assures Mr. Tomoyuki Igarashi.
"The anchor investor of the advance development zone, LLC JGC Evergreen is located in the Industrial Park "Avant-garde", where apart from them there are three other residents. The site is well located and attracts investors focused on financing projects related to agriculture", noted the General Director of JSC Development Corporation of the Far East Mr. Denis Tikhonov.
The peculiarity of the site is in full provision of the necessary engineering infrastructure at the expense of federal and regional budgets. The territory is supplied with water, electricity and gas. Also at the moment, about 5 km of road infrastructure has been repaired, and in July 2019 the road leading up to the boundaries of the land area of the "Avant-garde" site will be completed. The customer of all works was the administration of Khabarovsk.
Using the advantages of the advance development zone resident, JGC Evergreen (82.2% belongs to the Japanese holding JGC, the remainder to the Russian LLC "Energy-imuls-plus") began construction of a greenhouse complex simultaneously with the creation of advance development zone 'Khabarovsk' in June 2015. Investments in the first phase of the project amounted to 7.734 million Euro. In five months, the greenhouses of 2.5 ha with the production capacity of up to 400 tons of vegetables per year were built and launched.
"For us it has been the first agricultural project in Russia, we believe that it has been a success and we will continue the development of greenhouse complexes", said the honorary chairman of the group of companies JGC Mr. Yoshihiro Shigehisa.
At the end of 2017, during the "Days of the Far East" in Moscow, the construction of the second phase was officially completed, which required the investment of 6.677 million Euro.
"With the introduction of the second phase, we will increase the supply of vegetables up to 1.3 thousand tons per year", announced Mr. Tomoyuki Igarashi during the teleconference with the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Mr. Dmitry Medvedev.
"There is no doubt in the Far East that we are very interested in the development of various types of production, both industrial and agricultural. That is exactly why both me and my colleagues are truly and constantly engaged in the matter", responded the Prime Minister.
Thanks to the launch of the second production line, the assortment of greenhouse vegetables has expanded noticeably. "The city dwellers have highly estimated our radishes Donar", says the assistant of the General Director of the enterprise, Ms. Ekaterina Panova. "They have short and edible tops. Eggplant production is next in line." In addition to tomatoes and cucumbers, lettuce and ruccola are grown here. The experimental batch of sweet pepper varieties Tekilo is already sold out; they have an unusual deep purple colour and bright aroma.
Russian Japanese resident of the advance development zone is planning to expand the range of products with Japanese strawberries in the near future and is working on the possibility of field production of a number of crops, such as potatoes, carrots and onions. This will allow non-stop production even in the summer months when greenhouses are closed for sterilization.
The company are intending to start construction of the third phase of the greenhouses and expand their acreage to 10.3 ha. The total amount of investments is estimated at 32 million Euro. 150 new working places will be created.
"Nowadays, many Japanese companies are aware of such successful experience and constantly consult us on how to get started quickly in Russia. In our opinion, the secret of success is in the constant attention of the federal and regional authorities to our project", noted the Senior Executive Director of JGC corporation Mr Masanori Suzuki.
Advance development zone 'Khabarovsk', established June 25, 2015, consists of three sites: "Airport", "Rakitnoe" and "Avant-garde".
According to the calculations of the Investment and Development Agency of Khabarovsk region, by 2025 the residents of the territory will have created 9706 working places. The amount of taxes paid to the budgets of all levels will have reached 147.895 million Euro (6% of the total amount of taxes to the budget of the region). The raised investments will have comprised 5.05 rubles to each ruble invested by the state, or 847,134.57 million Euro per ha of the land plot of the resident.
The article was written by the Joint Editorial Office of the Far East (JEO).
Source: amurmedia.ru