Boustead Plantations to expand landbank

Selangor: Boustead Plantations Bhd will expand its landbank by another 20 per cent within two to three years from the current 83,400 hectares, says vice chairman, Tan Sri Lodin Wok Kamaruddin.He said although the company received offers from countries like the Philippines and Papua New Guinea to establish plantations, Malaysia would remain its top choice due to the country's stable political situation, fertile land as well as predictable weather.

"Probably our issue is more of insufficient workers to work at our plantations.

"However, we have overcome that by implementing mechanisation of various processes," he told reporters at the company's annual general meeting here Wednesday.

Lodin said the company wanted to be more cost effective and efficient, following a challenging year for the plantation sector.

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At present, the prices of crude palm oil is facing some challenges, namely the abundant supply of soybean, its biggest competitor.

Besides this, the demand for the commodity has also fallen as China and India are scaling down purchases and keeping the inventory higher.

"Moving forward, we expect CPO prices to trade between RM2,300 and RM2,400 per tonne, with lower inventory," Lodin said.

He added that the CPO inventory level had fallen to 1.74 million tonnes from 2.17 million tonnes last year.

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For the financial year ended Dec 31, 2014, Boustead Plantations recorded an improved operating profit of RM90 million from RM76 million a year ago, driven by higher CPO production and palm product prices.

Turnover meanwhile stood at RM717 million. For its first year as a listed entity, the company declared a full year net dividend of six sen per share, representing a total payout of RM96 million and a dividend yield of four per cent based on the closing price for the year. – Bernama

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