Business

Wednesday May 27, 2009

Kulim expands planting area abroad

By ZAZALI MUSA


JOHOR BARU: Kulim (M) Bhd is allocating RM80mil in capital expenditure to expand its planting area in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Solomon Islands this year.

Chairman Tan Sri Muhammad Ali Hashim said the expansion would be undertaken by Kulim’s subsidiaries New Britain Palm Oil Ltd (NBPOL) and Ramu Agri-Industries Ltd.

He said Kulim had identified new area of 6,000ha in PNG scheduled to start planting by year-end and 4,100ha next to its existing plantation in Solomon Islands where planting on 1,000ha would start soon.

“The prospects in the oil palm plantation business in PNG and Solomon Islands are good as there are still large tracts of land,’’ Ali said after the company AGM yesterday.

Tan Sri Muhammad Ali Hashim (left) and Ahamad Mohamad at the AGM

Kulim currently has some 83,000ha planted with oil palm in Malaysia, PNG and Solomon Islands, and plans to double its combined planted area in PNG and Solomon Islands in 10 years.

Ali said the group was not affected by the current racial unrest in PNG as it was taking place on the main island where Kulim had no operations.

Managing director Ahamad Mohamad said Kulim’s new £17mil refinery facility in Liverpool, England, would start operations early next year, processing sustainable and traceable palm oils sourced from certified group operations.

Ahamad said the plant would produce 200,000 tonnes of food-based ingredients annually from sustainable palm oil for the European market.

He said it was currently talking with several companies in Europe to supply the food-based ingredients after its Malaysian and NBPOL operations received the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil certification.

Meanwhile, Kulim posted a net profit of RM24.4mil, or 8.07 sen per share, in the first quarter ended March 31 against RM98.2mil, or 34.56 sen per share, a year earlier.

In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, the group said all business segments showed lower profit compared with the corresponding quarter last year, except for KFC Holdings (M) Bhd.

Total turnover jumped 54.3% to RM1.32bil from RM853mil previously.


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