Tuesday, 10 June 2008

Private plantation company to import oil palm seedlings from Costa Rica

06/11/08

Private plantation company to import oil palm seedlings from Costa Rica

Muara Teweh (ANTARA News) - PT Antang Ganda Utama (AGU), a major private plantation company, in Teweh Tengah subdistrict, North Barito District, Central Kalimantan, planned to import 1,150,000 seedlings of oil palm trees from Costa Rica, a Central American country.

"More than one million seedlings will be planted in 2009 for the expansion of oil palm plantation areas," North Barito`s Forestry and Plantation Service Iwan Fikri said here on Wednesday.

The plantation expansion would cover a total area of 5,000 hectares. Of the total, 3,500 hectares would be carried out next year, and the remaining 1,500 hectares in 2010, he said.PT AGU, which is grouped in the Matahari Kahuripan Indonesia (Makin), current has 404,840 seedlings.

In addition to PT AGU, another oil palm plantation investor PT Multi Persada Gatra Megah (MPGM) this year also planned to import more than one million seedlings from Costa Rica for the expansion of its oil palm plantation areas in Karamuan village, Lahei subdistrict, North Barito (Barut).

Indonesia is currently the world`s second largest producer of palm oil, after Malaysia. The country`s oil-palm plantations covered 5.3 million hectares of the country in 2004, according to a report by Friends of the Earth-Netherlands. (*)
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