Zeneca exports pesticides

JAKARTA (JP): PT Zeneca Agri Products Indonesia, a subsidiary of British pesticide producer Zeneca, announced yesterday that it has exported 10 containers of pesticides worth US$2.2 million to China and Malaysia over the last two months.

The company's vice president for manufacturing, Etty Indrawati Lukman, said that it exported its Matador pesticide to China under a brand name of Kungfu.

She said that demand for pesticide and herbicide in China had increased by an average of 20 percent per year for the last five years.

"We are trying to enter the Chinese market which is one of the biggest agriculture markets in the world. Exporting pesticides will earn foreign exchange and help us to survive the economic crisis," she said.

The company manufactures about 20 products, including herbicides like Agroxone, Maestro, Gramoxone, Para-col, Reflex, Touchdown and pesticides like Agrathion, Ambush, Atabron, Bancol, Cymbush, and Matador.

The company's most popular products are Gramoxone and Para- col, which are widely used in Central Kalimantan where the government is opening 1 million hectares of rice fields

Etty said that the company also exported rodentia, which is used to exterminate rats, to Malaysia and Thailand. (gis)