March 13, 2010

China Zhongpin reports increase in profit for 2009

Chinese meat processor Zhongpin posted bumper 2009 profits and sales as the company benefited from moves to increase production capacity throughout the year.

The group reported a 45.2% jump in annual net income to US$45.6 million after sales climbed 34.5% to US$726 million.

Zhongpin started production in two new pork processing plants and upgraded a third facility in 2009, moves that boosted its 138,000 tonnes to its capacity.

"Our return on average assets was down just a half point - 11% in 2009 compared with 11.5% in 2008. We believe this was a major achievement, since we invested aggressively in new production facilities to support our market and sales expansion in 2009," chairman and CEO Xianfu Zhu said.

In April, Zhongpin will start building a plant for prepared pork products in Tianjin that will have an annual capacity of about 36,000 tonnes. The Tianjin facility will include a new warehouse and distribution centre and an R&D centre.

Meanwhile, Zhongpin is set to open a new "premium" pork oil production plant in Changge with an annual capacity of 20,000 tonnes. The company is also building three cold storage and distribution centres for chilled and fresh pork, and agricultural products. The centres are located adjacent to Zhongpin's processing facilities in Zhumadian, Anyang, and Luoyang, in China's Henan province.