S Khonkaen Foods has lowered this year's revenue-growth forecast from 15 per cent to 10 to 12 per cent as it has faced rising costs for raw materials, especially pork and chicken, said chief executive officer, Charoen Rujirasopon.

The Nation of Thailand reports that the company last month increased the prices of its processed food by three per cent to reflect these higher costs and to maintain gross profit margin of 28 per cent.

Mr Charoen said the company would invest about 300 million Baht to build new plants to expand production capacity to 14,000-15,000 tonnes per year from 7,000 tonnes at present. The output from the new plants will help expand its export markets in Europe and Middle East.

The construction is expected to be completed by the first quarter next year.

Mr Charoen said the company planned to appoint agents and build distribution centres in countries in the region to cash in on the coming ASEAN Economic Community, starting in Laos. S Khonkaen Foods will negotiate with partners in that country in the next three to five weeks.