After the acquisition, the Australia-based firm will invest in improving and expanding the mill, as well as the purchase of additional machinery to allow for the whitening and polishing of rice.

In addition, the mill will be equipped with a new packing line to ensure that it will meet SunRice’s standards in producing high quality and safe products that can satisfy customers’ requirements, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in Australia.

The mill is slated to begin operating in the first half of 2019, with an annual capacity of some 260,000 tons of dry unhusked rice.

The acquisition marks the first direct financial investment of the Group in Vietnam, the Vietnam Trade office said in a statement, while the value of the purchase and expansion remains unknown.

Commenting on the acquisition, SunRice CEO Rob Gordon said that the purchase of the local rice processing mill is among a series of investments which have been conducted to bolster SunRice’s Growth Strategy through 2022.

He added that the firm also signed Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with two provinces in the Mekong Delta region. Under the MOU, the parties pledged to maintain the sustainable growth of rice, producing rice products which have quality and specification tailored to SunRice’s consumption markets. Moreover, the two localities will grow IP-protected rice varieties bred specifically for SunRice.

SunRice is reportedly the leading branded food exporter in Australia, generating over US$1 billion in revenue per year, adding that it currently remains the largest rice supplier in its country and among the world’s largest firms purchasing Japonica rice.

The Group has imported Japonica and Indica rice from Vietnam for over a decade, purchasing US$200 million of Vietnamese rice in the last three years, which accounted for some 5% of exported local rice.