Board Chairman of Group DF Dmytro Firtash is to build the largest high-tech greenhouse complex in western Ukraine, worth some $100 million, in Sinkov in Ternopil Oblast where the businessman was born, his press service reported last week.
The press service said that earlier Firtash and Ternopil Regional Administration head Valentyn Khoptian laid a capsule in the foundation of the complex.
The new greenhouse complex should start operating in autumn 2012, and annually the complex will produce 4,000 tonnes of tomatoes and 1,550 tonnes of peppers, reads the press release.
The release says that the expected yield of tomatoes is around 70 kilograms per square meter, and that for pepper – some 40 kilograms per square meter, with the average yield of the plants being 58 kilograms per square meter, exceeding the indicator in similar complexes by 30-65%, at farms by six times and in household gardens by 18 times, reads the document.
The press release says that at present, most greenhouse complexes in the country plant tomatoes and cucumbers (around 90% of the fields), while peppers are planted only on 1% of all greenhouse fields. It is planned that the greenhouse complex in Sinkov will be the first in Ukraine where peppers will be planted in industrial volumes.
According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, in 2010 Ukraine imported 8,400 tonnes of peppers, and in the ten months ending October 2011 the country imported 7,400 tonnes of peppers, so it is expected that pepper planted in Sinkov will allow pepper imports to be reduced by 20%.
The complex will also have a greenhouse to produce seedlings with the capacity of 8.4 million seedlings per year, a storage facility and a food packaging facility.
The company will be able to process food and produce canned tomatoes and peppers.
Firtash said that when the complex is launched, some 150-200 people would work there.
At present, the construction site is being prepared. Over 200 constructors and 70 special vehicles are working on the ten hectare land plot.
The number of constructors will exceed 300 people when excavation work is completed.
Greenhouse equipment will be shipped by a Dutch company, while the planting technologies were bought in Israel.
