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.