The Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical’s facility in northern Bac Ninh province’s Que Vo Industrial Park (IP), will produce pain-killers made from the skin of New Zealand-originated white rabbits with the designed capacity of 3,700 rabbits per day. These pain-killers are designed to enhance human immunity capacity.

The facility, covering the total area of 10.6 hectares, will be carried out in two phases, with the first phase costing $62 million and using three hectares of the land. The new facility is expected to come into operation in April 2014.

Dang Thanh Tam, chairmain of Kinh Bac City Development Holding Corporation, the developer of Que Vo IP said attraction of Japanese investors like Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical was in line with the firm’s business strategy for the park.

Former Japanese Ambassador to Vietnam Norio Hattori said at the breaking-ground ceremony: “I have introduced Que Vo IP in Vietnam to Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical for the location of this facility as raw materials for the facility are available in Vietnam. Furthermore, the business environment in Vietnam in general and in Bac Ninh in particular is very attractive with high stability.”

Nguyen Tien Nhuong, Deputy Chairman of Bac Ninh Provincial People’s Committee, expressed his appreciation for Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical’s decision to invest in Bac Ninh, which would open the opportunity for developing large-scale rabbit farms in the province and in northern Vietnam as a whole.

Currently, rabbit is easy to breed in Vietnam’s northern provinces while rabbit farms require little investment capital but bring out high economic values for local farmers.

In 2007, Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical built a New Zealand rabbit-originated farm in northern Ninh Binh province, which is capable of supplying 1.5-2 million rabbits each year.

In addition to its new facility in Vietnam, Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical has two others, one in Japan and one in China. The two plants are operating at their full capacity but they still fail to meet the increasing demand for painkillers in the world. Nippon Zoki Pharmaceutical’s products are very popular in Japan, Europe and the US.