KUALA LUMPUR, 24 July 2001 (Business Times) - Owners of oil palmplantations have seven more days to register with the Malaysian Palm OilBoard to receive an incentive of RM1,000 per hectare for replanting oilpalm trees.

This incentive is to encourage all companies, smallholders and individualplantation owners to replant trees which are more than 25 years old.

Primary Industries Minister Datuk Lim Keng Yaik said the government hasallocated RM200 million this year to encourage the replanting of oil palmin some 200,000ha.

This move, he said, was to reduce production especially with the prices ofoil palm having increased from RM800 to RM1,200 per tonne.

The increase in price should not make producers greedy by hoarding theirstock in the hope the price will go up further, he told reporters afterlaunching Serai Wangi Products (Malaysian Citronella Oil) and Seminar onMedicinal and Aromatic Plants at Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM)today.

He said they should sell their stock while the price was good as thisincrease might not last long and also due to the fact that high productionof oil palm was expected between August and October.