KOTA KINABALU, March 29 -- (Bernama) -- Golden Hope Plantations Bhd (GHPB)plans to expand its downstream oils and oil fats businesses including itsoleo chemicals business globally, group chief executive officer, DatukSabri Ahmad said Tuesday.

"We are considering countries like Ukraine and the West Asian region suchas Dubai. So far GHPB has refineries in Rotterdam in the Netherlands,which is the second largest in Europe, in South Africa which is thebiggest in Africa, in Vietnam and a joint venture in Bangladesh," Sabrisaid.

He said GHPB would concentrate on long term opportunities by building itsmarket share and strengthen its brand positioning.

Upon the completion of the group rationalisation programme with Island &Peninsular, the group would focus on operational excellence and increasedproductivity, he told Bernama on the sidelines of International CEO 2005Conference, here Tuesday.

Golden Hope and I&P, its associate company, had earlier announced therationalisation exercise which would result in the formation of two giantplantation and property firms.

Golden Hope Plantations Bhd has received significant interest on BursaMalaysia after obtaining shareholders' endorsement on its rationalisationexercise involving an asset swap with Island & Peninsular Bhd (I&P).

The shareholders of Golden Hope recently gave the nod for the voluntarygeneral offer (VGO) by I&P to acquire Golden Hope's property subsidiary,Negara Properties Bhd, which was the final part of the exercise.

The total consideration for the whole VGO exercise was about RM310million.

Following this, Golden Hope will emerge as one of the plantation companiesowning the country's largest land-bank, including in Indonesia.

Among other things upon completion of the rationalise exercise, Sabri saidthe group would also reduce cost of production by substituting inorganicfertiliser with composting using bio-technology to enrich the compost.

He said it would also focus on full utilisation of all oil mills andreduce transport cost of fresh fruit bunches (ffb).

Sabri said Golden Hope had completed divestment of less profitablenon-core business for example wood based companies.

Touching on the outlook of palm oil prices for this year, Sabri said withthe new bio-diesel factor, the commodity prices was expected to besustainable at a price of between RM1,400 to RM1,500 per tonne this year.

On another note, he said Golden Hope was also in the midst of developingthe Kundak district in Sabah as an important palm oil hub.

He said Kundak was chosen to be the hub due to its advantage of having adeep port.

The group currently has about 36,000 ha of palm oil plantation in Sabah.