14/12/05 IPOH, (Bernama) -- A public listed company is expected to invest about RM260 million in what would be Perak's first biomass project that would see the production of oil palm based biomass.

Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Tajol Rosli Ghazali, who declined to reveal the name of the company, said that the state government was prepared to offer incentives to the company which expected to produce paper from the pulp and trunks of oil palm as well as biofuel from crude palm oil.

"The state government has agreed to sell land owned by the State Agriculture Development Corporation (SADC) to the company at quite a high price as the company wanted the area to be close to a palm oil mill," he told reporters after chairing the state Exco meeting, here Wednesday.

The SADC's pieces of land to be sold include an area measuring 19.2 hectares and another land measuring eight hectares in Lekir, Sitiawan.

"The state government is not looking so much at the returns from the project but its cooperation is geared more towards the gains to be derived from the development of agriculture in the state using biotechnology," he said.

The company is expected to start building its plant mid next month if the Environment Impact Assessment Report from the Department of Environment comes through soon, he said.

Tajol Rosli said the products from the plant, which expected to employ about 400 people, would be exported to Europe and other developed countries.

He said that the company had also selected Perak for its investment as the state had among the highest number of palm oil mills in the country.-- BERNAMA