20/3/06 COTABATO CITY (Asia Pulse) - Visiting Malaysian High Minister YB Tan Sri Bernard G. Dompok has pledged to convince Malaysian investors to infuse capital to North Cotabato's growing palm oil industry in a bid to boost peace and development effort in the area and the rest of the region.

Dompok, along with members of Kuala Lumpur Federal Land Authority, made such assurance in a meeting recently with North Cotabato Governor Emmanuel Pinol at the latter's office in the provincial capitol building in Barangay Amas, this city.

The foreign diplomat told Pinol their visit forms part of their effort to strengthen trade relations between the Philippines and Malaysia.

The Menzi Company in Basilan established the first oil palm plantation in the Philippines during the 1940s.

It took some four decades before domestic firm NDC Corporation established partnership with the Guthrie of Malaysia to form the Filipina Palm Oil Industry, Inc., the country's biggest oil palm plantation in Agusan del Sur in 1981.

Two years after, some local traders also established links with Singaporean business partners and built the multi-million Agusan Plantations, Inc. in same province.

Here in Central Mindanao, at least 5,000 hectares of land are planted with palm oil by Kenram Philippines in Sultan Kudarat province.

Palm oil is widely used in the manufacture of soaps and detergents, food preservatives, chemical, cosmetic and pharmaceutical products.

"Palm oil is cost-effective as it does not need to go through expensive hydrogenation process," Pinol said.

(PNA)