28/7/06 (NSTP)  - SHANGHAI: Golden Hope Plantations Bhd (GHope) plans to set up palm oil-based biodiesel plants, one each in China and South Korea, to ride on both the countries' initiatives to reduce dependency on expensive fossil fuels.

GHope group chief executive Datuk Sabri Ahmad said the company has also made its maiden foray in supplying raw materials to the republic's multi-million dollar detergent industry by building a US$15 million (RM55 million) plant in Nansha, China.

"China aims to substitute 25 per cent of its total diesel consumption of 70 million tonnes a year with sustainable sources such as palm oil-based biodiesel

"And we expect a return of 20 per cent in 3-5 years from our investment in China's detergent industry," Sabri told reporters here yesterday at the Malaysia-China palm oil trade fair and seminar, launched by Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui, who is in town to lead a palm oil trade mission which ends today.

Sabri said the biodiesel plant could be in Guangzhou with an annual capacity of 100,000 tonnes a year but the company has yet to identify a site in South Korea.

A 60,000-tonne capacity bio- diesel plant costs RM40 million to build in Malaysia.

GHope is in the midst of either planning or building a total of four biodiesel plants, of which three are in Malaysia and one in Holland, which will produce almost 400,000 tonnes of methyl esther a year collectively.

Meanwhile, Chin said China which is already Malaysia's top buyer of crude palm oil (CPO) at almost three million tonnes last year is expected to maintain its purchases.

The country bought one fifth of Malaysia's total CPO production of almost 15 million tonnes last year.

He added that the Government is also mulling on making the inaugural palm oil seminar in Shanghai a biennial event alternating with the hugely succesful Palm Oil International Congress in Kuala Lumpur, which is also held once every two years.