Malaysian business tycoon and philanthropist Robert Kuok has joined forces with the San Miguel Corporation to help the Philippines boost food production and curb the country’s growing food crisis.
The family-owned Kuok Group, which runs the Shangri-La Hotel chain, and SMC will invest injecting $1 billion to develop at least one million hectares of agricultural lands to boost production of rice, corn, sugar and other crops in the Philippines. The Southeast Asian country is the world’s largest importer of rice and has been hit hard by the growing global food crisis.