28/01/2012 (Borneo Post) - Sarawak Plantation Bhd (Sarawak Plantation) is expected to register a profit of RM100 million before tax for 2011, which will be a increase of almost 100 per cent, from RM52 million in 2010.

Its managing director Datuk Hamden Ahmad said he was confident that the company would be able to achieve this target as it had already achieved RM83 million (before tax) as September 2011.

“I believe we can record another RM20 million or more in the last quarter of 2011 (October to December),” he said.

Hamden attributed the good growth in profit to the good price of crude palm oil and palm kernel last year.

“We anticipate the crude oil palm (CPO) price to sustain around RM3,000 to RM3,200 per metric tonne this year,” he added.

Meanwhile, Hamden urged the locals to take up jobs at various Sarawak Plantation estates in the state to ease workers shortage.

“We hope very much that more local people will get work in our estates, especially in terms of harvesting and maintenance work. We don’t have enough local workers, so much so that we have to hire foreign workers from Indonesia,” he disclosed.

The company’s present workforce in the estates was around 2,500, with about 1,000 people for harvesting and the rest for field maintenance work such as weeding, trimming and manuring.

“We are facing a worker shortage of about 100 harvesters and 250 maintenance workers,” said Hamden.

According to him, the foreign harvesters were paid between RM38 and RM48 per metric tonne of the fruit depending on the height of the palm trees while the maintenance workers earned between RM25 and RM30 per day. Locals were paid the same rate.

The total area of Sarawak Plantation’s 15 estates (nine in Miri, four in Mukah and one each in Tulai and Sri Aman) now stood at 60,000 hectares. The company also aimed to increase its hectarage to 100,000 hectares in the long term.