Sapporo Holdings Ltd will launch beer production in Vietnam in early 2012, its second overseas manufacturing foray after Canada. Sapporo will construct a brewery in a suburb of Ho Chi Minh City, the first beer plant to be built by a Japanese brewer in Vietnam where beer sales have been growing at an annual rate of more than 10%, the Tokyo-based company said.    
For the move into Vietnam, Sapporo will buy a 65% stake in Kronenbourg Vietnam Ltd, a local 50-50 joint venture between leading Danish brewer Carlsberg Brewery A/S and Vietnam National Tobacco Corp., for $25.35 million. The joint venture will then be renamed Sapporo Vietnam Ltd and produce 330-mililiter cans and bottles of Sapporo’s mainstay Black Label beer for distribution through the Vietnam tobacco company’s sales network.