CJ Cheiljedang to spend us$300 mln on lysine plant Indonesia

Antara News, Tuesday, August 31, 2010 03:10 WIB

Seoul (ANTARA News/Yonhap/OANA) - CJ CheilJedang Corp., South Korea`s biggest food company, said Monday that it will spend US$300 million to build a lysine plant in the eastern part of the island of Java, Indonesia.

Earlier in the day, CJ CheilJedang broke ground on the plant in Jombang. When completed in 2012, it will produce 100,000 tons of lysine and 50,000 tons of threonine a year, the company said in a statement.

Lysine and threonine are essential amino acids for animal feed.

"We will continue to increase our investment to secure a combined annual production capacity of 550,000 tons of lysine by 2013 and grab a 30 percent share of the global lysine market," Kim Jin-soo, chief executive of CJ CheilJedang, was quoted as saying at the ceremony.

CJ CheilJedang predicted that the plant will raise the company`s global lysine market share to 25 percent, beating its two bigger rivals: China`s GBT and Japan`s Ajinomoto.

GBT currently leads the global lysine market estimated at $2.5 billion, followed by Ajinomoto.

CJ CheilJedang also started producing tryptophan, one of the 20 standard amino acids, in its Indonesian plant last month, challenging Ajinomoto`s 70 percent share of the $100-million global tryptophan market.