In lactic acid fermentation, the end product inhibition by lactic acid causes several problems. The most important of which are low lactate formation rate and its recovery from fermentation broth. To overcome these problems, extractive lactic acid fermentation was carried out in a bioreactor, which was connected to a column packed with anion exchange resin (Amberlite IRA-400, 250 g). The system was started as a batch process, and then the separation process was started when the lactic acid concentration reached 10 g/L, 20 g/L or 30 g/L. In each case, total lactic acid concentration was reached to 48.6, 53.6, 52.6 g/L with its productivity of 1.2 g/L $.$ h, 1.6 g/L $.$ h, and 1.3 g/L $.$ h, respectively Especially, in the case of the 20 g/L recycling-initiation process, extractive fermentation reduced tie fermentation time (17 hrs) by 34% in comparison with the conventional batch process. The direct consequence of this time reduction was shown by a 1.8 fold increase in overall lactic acid productivity.