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THERE we go again, selling the farm …
WHY not it’s all up for grabs!
WHAT does the FIRB stand for?
IS it …
-‘Foreigners Interest Reinforcing Buyups’
Or
-‘Foreign Interests Retaining Buyouts’
Or FIRB =
–Failure, Indifference, Rubberstamp, and Betrayals *
Q Can Australia buy up Vietnam, and do what we like?
A We tried before and failed and they are not going to allow us to have another go!
David Irvine, FIRB; all but five foreign investment proposals approved by FIRB …
P.S. …
‘The purchaser will look into growing cotton and building tourism to diversify its international interests.’
Growing cotton … what about the environment of the Northern Territory and Western Australia … to take more than its share of Our Water … as they vertically integrate their tourism … fly in tourists by their Vietnamese airlines … with their own guided bus tours and tourist shops … and stay in their own accommodation …
HOW long before the Australian workers become redundant and are replaced by foreign Visa Workers?
Vietnamese company buys three cattle stations, with plans to expand into cotton and tourism
Updated 5 March 2020
A Vietnamese agricultural company has settled a deal to buy three Top End cattle stations, covering 732,900 hectares and with 60,000 head of cattle, more than 12 months after a contract was signed.
Key points:
- A year after signing a contract, Clean Agriculture and International Tourism settles a deal to buy two NT and one northern WA cattle stations
- The Foreign Investment Review Board and the Vietnamese government needed to approve the deal worth $130 million
- The purchaser will look into growing cotton and building tourism to diversify its international interests
The Auvergne and Newry Stations, along with Western Australia’s Argyle Downs Station, are now in the hands of Clean Agriculture and International Tourism (CAIT), a subsidiary of the Vietnamese-owned TH Group.
The deal to buy the properties — including the land, stock and plant — from Consolidated Pastoral Company (CPC), was worth $130 million when the contract was announced in January 2019.
After approvals from both the Foreign Investment Review Board and the Vietnamese government, one of the biggest Top End land deals in recent history was completed in late January, with most of CPC’s workforce continuing with CAIT.
What is Clean Agriculture and International Tourism?
CAIT is controlled by the TH Group — a Vietnamese agricultural company that runs around 45,000 dairy cows, producing around 40 per cent of the country’s fresh milk.
The TH Group has rapidly expanded in the past few years, investing heavily in high-tech dairy machinery, and in 2018 put $US630 million towards a milk processing plant in Russia.
TH Group’s chairwoman, Thai Huong, has previously been listed by Forbes magazine as one of Asia’s most powerful businesswomen.
Kununurra-based Steve Petty is a director of CAIT and the company’s representative in Australia.
Dr Petty said the company saw the purchase of the CPC properties as an opportunity to expand into pastoralism, cropping, and tourism.
“It’s a move to diversify their international interests into other areas,” Dr Petty said.
“They know cattle from their existing dairy business … they see what the potential is in northern Australia, and they are quite excited about what can be done in this area.”
Plans to consolidate cattle and develop cropping
While the company has plans to develop cropping on the pastoral properties, Dr Petty said consolidating and developing the cattle business would be the primary focus.
“It is a pretty good base that CPC have left there, and the plan is to build on that foundation,” he said.
“[CAIT] will then work to look at opportunities for agriculture that would involve improved pasture, and then into some level of cropping.
“The key place would be Auvergne, where there is a lot of potential.
“But there is a lot of work that needs to be done with the respective agencies for approval before taking that step.
“Further down the track there might be some involvement in tourism but that might be a three or five-year time frame.”
In the short term, CAIT aims to focus on growing forage crops such as sorghum, before following the lead of several other Top End stations by looking at cotton. *
“There is interest in the cotton area — there is a lot of work going on in the Territory and the Kimberley into opportunities. So they will look closely at that [in the future],” Dr Petty said.
“There is quite a bit of research that still needs to be done in terms of what is going to be economic and what makes sense.”
Slow and steady approach to development
Dr Petty said the company was taking a slow and steady approach to the development of the three properties, in consultation with the NT Government.
“The NT Government has, to date, been very supportive of development in these areas but also very focused on what the regulations are, what is permissible, and what the potential environmental impacts or implications of a development [could be],” he said.
“So I think that between the NT Government and the CAIT group, it is going to be an evolution rather than any revolution.
“I think that is healthy for the NT and healthy for the company as well.”
Related articles
- South African-backed family to buy two more NT cattle stations for $70m
- Trio of cattle stations in NT, WA sold to Vietnamese investors in $135m deal
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