Loan for Production and Sales Business of Woodchips in Vietnam
Contributing to Securement of Stable Supply of Woodchips by a Japanese Company

• Region: Asia
• Energy and Natural Resources
• Overseas Investment Loans

1. The Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC; Governor: Hiroshi Watanabe) today signed loan agreements totaling up to USD798 thousand and JPY51 million (both JBIC portions) respectively with Sojitz Corporation (Sojitz). These loans are confinanced with The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd., with the overall cofinancing amount reaching approximately USD2.147 million.
    
2. The loans are intended to finance the production and sales business of woodchips by Vietnam-Japan Chip Corporation LTD (VIJACHIP), a partnership between Sojitz and Vietnamese investors^*1, and the fund will be used to build the production facility. VIJACHIP plans to produce 190 thousand BD tons^*2 of woodchips per year from 2016, and all of them will be off-taken by Sojitz and exported mainly to Japan as papermaking material.
    
3. Japan imports more than half of its papermaking material from overseas including Vietnam, and supply and demand for Vietnamese woodchip is expected to be tighter as the demand for Vietnamese papermaking material increases along with expanding paper production in neighboring China as a result of its economic growth. Thus, this project will contribute to securing a stable supply of woodchips from Vietnam, which is geographically close to Japan.
    
4. As Japan's policy-based financial institution, JBIC will continue to support the development and acquisition of important resources by Japanese companies, by drawing on its various financial facilities and schemes for structuring projects, and performing its risk-assuming function.

Note

1. *1 Vietnamese investors include enterprises in which Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and local governments invest.
2. *2 BD (Bone Dry) ton is a measurement of wood pulp/chip at 0 percent moisture content.