Chandigarh, Sep 30 (IANS): To give further impetus to the industrial growth a Holland-based company is setting up a cattle feed plant at the cost of Rs 142 crore, the foundation stone of which will be laid by the Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann on Sunday and will be functional by the first quarter of 2025.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the Chief Minister with the Ambassador of the Netherlands Marisa Gerards, who called on the former here at his residence.

Showcasing Punjab as the most preferred investment destination, Mann apprised the visiting Ambassador that the state has an industrial-friendly government with a single window system for the well-being of industrialists.

He said Punjab is a land of opportunities and the leading companies from across the world are making a beeline to invest in the state.

The Chief Minister said entrepreneurs from the Netherlands will also be immensely benefited by investing in the state, which is rapidly emerging as the industrial hub of the country.

He asked the visiting Ambassador to encourage their industrialists to make optimum use of this congenial atmosphere backed by excellent infrastructure, power, skilled human resources and best industrial and work culture to spread the business of their companies in the state.

Extending a red carpet welcome to the industrialists of the Netherlands, the Chief Minister said the state government is always open for new ideas and innovations to boost up the industrial growth in Punjab. Ambassador Marisa Gerards told the media on Indo-Dutch relations and her meeting with Chief Minister Mann.

She said in her meeting she explored the areas in which the Netherlands and companies from there could cooperate.

She suggested to the Chief Minister that since the Netherlands is a country of bicycles, her country would love to be part of a big bicycling event in Punjab.

Other than agriculture the two countries can cooperate in various other fields, she added.

She told the media about two Indo-Dutch centres of excellence in potato seeds and floriculture already functional in Punjab and another one on onions being under construction. De Heus, a top 10 global animal feed company from the Netherlands, is setting up the state-of-the-art plant in Rajpura.

This is the first major investment by a Dutch company in the state.

The Netherlands is known to be the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world.

The plant, being set up by De Heus India, a direct wholly owned subsidiary of the more than 100 years old De Heus, will produce a full livestock product portfolio of compound feed, concentrates, base mix and dairy mineral mixes.

In the first phase, to be realized in the first quarter of 2025, the plant will produce 180 kilo metric tonnes (kMT) of animal feed, with a potential to increase it to 240 kMT.

The factory will have two dedicated lines.