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The durians are placed in large baskets while waiting to be freeze dried at the Manguwang Food Co factory in Thepha District in Songkhla before being exported to China.
A group of Chinese investors from Kunming has invested about 700 million baht in the creation of a Durian processing plant in the South-East, with the aim of exporting to China a third of the durian produced in the southern border provinces .
The presence of this factory is considered as proof of the growth of the durian export market in China.
Xiao Yaoheng, chief executive of Manguwang Food Co, said the company, a Sino-Thai joint venture, was now buying durian from local producers to be frozen and exported to China.
The company, located in Thepha district of Songkhla and commissioned earlier this month, has a working capital of about 2 billion baht, employs about 1,200 people and is able to buy 12,000 tons of durian a year, he said.
As for next year, the company plans to increase its durian purchasing capacity to 20,000 tons per year, which will represent one third of the total durian produced in the southern border provinces of Thailand. he declared.
Cultivating durian is a well-paid job in the southern border provinces, said Secretary-General of Rear Admiral Somkiat Phonprayoon of the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC).
The southern border provinces now have a combined production capacity of tens of thousands of tons of durian per year, he said. This Chinese investor has obtained an investment privilege from SBPAC, said Suphit Chitphakdi, director of the Office of Agricultural Research and Development 5 in Songkhla.
The factory is now able to buy and process 300 tons a day. Producing both freeze-dried durian paste and frozen durian paste for export to China, the plant buys durian at prices considerably higher than those of local buyers, he said. .
As nearly half of the durian fruits from South-South plantations do not normally meet export standards due to their smaller size than usual, the products are then sent to processing plants , did he declare.
In Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat alone, there are about 50,000 rai of sustainable farming areas, most of which are in the highlands or at the foot of a mountain, he said.
The entire lower south has about 150,000 ha of durain growing areas and produces between 120,000 and 150,000 tons of durian per year, he said.
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