KUALA LUMPUR, June 26 (Bernama) -- The loan credits incurred outstandingby four countries under the Palm Oil Credit and Payment Arrangement(POCPA) now totalled RM542.7 million or US$142.82 million, said he deputyfinance minister, Datuk Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh, Wednesday.The four were Algeria, Iraq, Sudan and Cuba and the government waspursuing the outstanding amounts, he said.

Algeria has an outstanding loan credit of USD59.8 million, Iraq US$61.34million, Sudan US$11.94 million and Cuba US$9.7 million, he said whenwinding up the debate on the supplementary supply bill (2002) at thecommittee level for the finance ministry at the Dewan Rakyat hereWednesday.

He said repayment from these countries was rather slow because of a numberof problems and for instance, Algeria was facing a revolution.

POCPA had been set up for nine countries to obtain loan credits for thepurchase of Malaysian palm oil and US$237.4 million had been used withrepayment totalling US$103 million to date.

"Countries which receive the POCPA credit are given two years to repay,"he said.

Dr Shafie said China and India were not included in the scheme as it wasprimarily for "South-South" countries.

He also said there were now 701 companies which had been accordedMultimedia Super Corridor status and out of the total, 463 were owned byMalaysians.

Of the total of 701, only 41 were inactive. Dr Shafie said RM26.38 millionin the form of equity had been used as expenditure and supplementing thecost of running the MSC by Multimedia Development Corporation Sdn Bhd(MDC).

"MDC is not an income generating or commercial entity and the fundsallocated in the form of equity would increase the government'sshareholding in MDC," he said. -- BERNAMA

(The informations and opinions expressed in this article represent theviews of the author only. They should not be seen as necessarilyreflecting the views of Palm News)