Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. has formed a food joint venture with Myanmar’s Capital Diamond Star Group Ltd. to be called Lluvia Ltd.
Although Mitsubishi’s investment into the deal was not released, Mitsubishi will acquire as much as 30% of the new venture which aims to become one of Myanmar’s first domestically developed regional companies, and which aims to invest more than $200 million in “businesses across the food value chain” over the next three years. Lluvia will use Mitsubishi’s international resources to drive aggressive expansion – developing the region’s food industry capacity for production in order to reduce Myanmar’s dependence on food imports.
The formation of this joint venture comes at a time of sweeping change for Myanmar. After 49 years of military rule, political and economic reforms instituted by Myanmar’s new government in 2011 have been making strides. The country has seen a recent surge in foreign direct investment – climbing to surpass $8 billion this fiscal year – $3 billion more than what was anticipated according to Aung Naing Oo, head of the state-run Myanmar Investment Commission.
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