| Country : | CHINA |
| Type of project : | Loan |
Scaling up the fight against cross-border animal diseases
Context
Strong demand for livestock products and the scaling-up in China’s livestock raising sector constitute the main engines of the development of the veterinary drug market. This market has sound growth fundamentals and is boosted by the Chinese government’s continual extension of the type of compulsory animal vaccines, and awareness of the need to prevent epidemics that often have disastrous effects on the economy.
Objectives
Proparco is financing two components of Sinder’s development: to extend its vaccine production capacity and optimize the company’s balance sheet structure.
Project description
Sinder is a company set up in 1999 by a group of veterinarians at the initiative of Mr. Li Zhaoyang. It has now become one of the main private players specialized in animal health in China. Its main activity involves developing, producing and distributing veterinary vaccines and drugs. It has built up a retail network that covers China’s main poultry and pig raising regions, and has also adopted a sales model with high added-value based on its own team of veterinary specialists. It can consequently provide a free advice and diagnosis service to the direct contacts of numerous livestock farmers in China. Sinder has been pursuing a strategy to restructure its product portfolio since 2005, with priority given to manufacturing biochemical products and vaccines rather than chemical products which, when they build up in foodstuffs and spread into the environment, can pose health risks. All its production units are certified as complying with GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) standards. Sinder is operating in a sector which enjoys a favorable outlook: a buoyant market growing at a steady pace with sound fundamentals, an increasingly rigorous regulatory framework, and a competitive positioning within a market that is still fragmented and has no monopoly.
Impacts
China accounts for over 25% of the global poultry population and almost 50% of the pig population. The vast majority of farms are extremely small with no sanitary control or vaccination. This situation means there is a major risk of pandemic, as the outbreaks of SARS and avian flu have demonstrated. Strengthening a private benchmark player – which provides a platform for exchanges with specialized foreign groups and enjoys a distribution network allowing it to respond rapidly to cases of new pandemics – will consequently help create an important link in the chain of the surveillance, prevention and treatment of potential pandemics.
Dates and amounts
Start-up: 2009
Financing: USD7.5 million senior loan