April 20, 2009

Mengniu Dairy will invest more this year to expand its raw milk bases in the country, said Yang Wenjun, the company's executive director and vice-president at the sidelines of the eighth Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference in Hainan province.

The company aims to increase the number of its mega-size pastures, each of which can house up to 10,000 cows, to 20 over the next three years. It currently has seven such pastures in Inner Mongolia, Shandong, Heilongjiang and Anhui.

The company plans to increase raw milk production and also ensure quality with more mega self-controlled pastures. Self-controlled pastures, which can house between 4,000 to 10,000 cows, accounts for two-thirds of the company's total milk supplies.

The melamine-tainted milk scandal had seriously affected most of the milk producers in the country with Sanlu Group being declared bankrupt while tarnishing the image of Mengniu Dairy Group and Yili Industrial Group.

Last week, Mengniu posted a net loss of RMB948.6 million (US$138.9 million) in 2008, its first loss since it was listed in Hong Kong in 2004.