15/08/05 Sandakan (Daily Express News) - Sabah, Malaysia's biggest palmoil producer, aims to produce six million tonnes of palm oil in 2010, saidState Agriculture and Food Industries Minister Datuk Abdul Rahim Ismail.

Last year, the State produced 4.8 million tonnes of palm oil or 34 percent of the total national production, he said.

"In 2010, it is expected to surge to six million tonnes of palm oil and1.4 million tonnes of palm kernel," he said at the fifth anniversarydinner of Sabah branch of Malaysia Palm Oil Association (MPOA), here,Saturday.

Rahim said Sabah's oil palm industry started in 1958 on a 5.6ha plot andits development was rather slow in the beginning.

After 12 years, he said oil palm-cultivated areas increased to 38,000hectares in 1970 and today the scenario had changed with 1.165 millionhectares.

He said Sabah used to be a timber State but its economy had sincediversified into agriculture base, especially oil palm.

In this respect, Rahim said formation of the Sabah MPOA branch had helpedthe plantation industry enter into a more matured phase of growth.

"There's no doubt the State is now enjoying the fruit of our keyinitiatives introduced decades ago in agriculture, particularly the palmoil industry.

"We all agree the palm oil industry has emerged as the leading agricultureforce and an important contributor to the State's gross domestic product(GDP)," he added.