Kumpulan to expand in RI

Kumpulan to expand in RI

KUALA LUMPUR (Dow Jones): Malaysia's Kumpulan Guthrie Bhd.
plans to expand its oil palm holdings in Indonesia to 200,000
hectares from around 10,000 hectares now, the Business Times
newspaper reported over the weekend.

The paper quoted Kumpulan Guthrie's chief executive, Khalid
Ibrahim, as saying at an analysts' conference on Saturday that
the company has no plans to expand its oil palm holdings in
Malaysia, which total around 110,000 hectares.

"The target is to be able to expand the Indonesian plantations
to (reach nearly) double the size of our existing Malaysian
plantations," Khalid was quoted as saying.

He also said the company's palm oil yields will rise to eight
to nine metric tons a hectare by 2007 from four to five tons per
hectare now because of the introduction of high-yield clones.
This will raise the company's annual crude palm oil output to
400,000 to 450,000 tons by 2007 from around 300,000 tons
currently.