Indian firm builds P45- M

corn processing plant in Pangasinan

An Indian company is set to formally open on July 15 a US$10 million corn processing plant it has built on a five hectare lot in Salvacion, Rosales, Pangasinan.

The formal opening of the completed project was announced by Exequiel Magsaysay, corporate secretary of the Prasad Seeds Philippines, Inc., a subsidiary of the Indian multinational agri-business company, Prasad Seeds.

In peso term, the investment would be equivalent to Php 450 million by the latest exchange rate. It was the single biggest foreign investment in this Northern Luzon province in recent years.

The last foreign investment before this was sank into the San Roque Multipurpose Dam Project in the town of San Manuel, a facility that generates cheap electricity as well as irrigation water to a wide swat of agricultural lands in Pangasinan and two nearby provinces.

“Prasad Seeds, a global company headquartered in Hyderabad, India is expanding this year worldwide starting in the Philippines,” Magsaysay announced in a letter sent to newsmen invited to witness the opening of the investment project.

Prasad Seeds Philippines is initially providing tolling services such as sorting, grading, processing and packaging corn seeds for another global seed company, Syngenta, Magsaysay added.

Prasad Seeds Philippines is committed in supporting the goal of the Department of Agriculture and the province of Pangasinan at making the province the seed capital of the Philippines, Magsaysay further said.

Two big seed companies are already based in the province.

In the long term, the company aspires to help convert the Philippines as the seed hub of Asia.