Sarawak Plantation eyes the use of native land for oil palm plantation, in a bid to increase profits and sales volume. “The (native) land bank is very good,” SPB executive director Datuk Wong Kuo Hea tells FocusM. “These are also strategically located, just next to the Pan-Borneo Highway. So the management will talk to the respective native groups and try to come up with a (lease) agreement (for their land). Then we can immediately start planting.” The Primary Industries Ministry has disallowed expansion of oil palm acreage. Sabah says it will forbid new plantations from eating into its permanent forest reserves. But Sarawak is unique with 1.5 mil hectares of native customary land, which is believed to be largely idle, under-utilised and belonging to local native landowners.

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Focus Malaysia