JOHOR BAHARU, June 14 (Bernama) -- The Pasir Gudang industrial area herewhich produces almost 600 million tonnes of palm oil a year, plans tofurther expand its palm oil based downstream activities.Chief executive of Johor Corporation (JCorp), Tan Sri Muhammad Ali Hashim,Friday said that to meet the objective, more companies would be encouragedto start palm oil based downstream activities in Pasir Gudang.

"We have also received many proposals from companies that want to expandand increase the production capacity of their palm oil based downstreamactivities," he told reporters after being a guest of Radio MalaysiaJohor's special programme with the Local Authorities of Pasir Gudang(PBTPG) here Friday.

Muhammad Ali, who is also the chief of PBTPG, said that the palm oilindustry had greater value added potential compared with other industrialsectors.

He said attention would also be given to the palm oil processing industry.

He said both the industries, palm oil refinery and palm oil downstreamactivities had good prospects for growth as they contributed significantlyto the government's economic growth.

He also assured people that both the Pasir Gudang and Tanjung Langsat,also near here, had a lot of space to meet the needs of new industries.

The Pasir Gudang industrial area covers an area of 400 hectares whileTanjung Langsat has 200 hectares yet to be used, he said.

There are 300 factories in Pasir Gudang and about 70 percent of them areforeign investors, involved in various heavy industries sector, medium andhigh tech industries including gas, petrochemical, petroleum, shippingengineering, electronic and car components.

Muhammad Ali said Pasir Gudang and Tanjung Langsat had the capacity tocompete with other indusrial areas in the country, more so especially whenthe RM100 million-Pelabuhan Tanjung Langsat (PTL) is completed before endof this year.

-- BERNAMA