Wednesday December 15, 2004 - KUCHING: There has been a new surge ofinvestors keen to develop native customary rights (NCR) land for oil palmplantations, said state Land Development Minister Datuk Dr James Masing.

He said the Government was unable to entertain all the investors as notenough land banks had been created for plantation projects.

"Now my ministry is faced with too many investors who want to invest" butthe ministry has too little NCR land to give, he told the state assemblyyesterday.

He said the ministry had approved only 31 of the 159 applications for NCRland development.

Dr Masing said the new concept of development for NCR land, which waslaunched a decade ago, involved the agreement among private investors,landowners and a government agency.

The investors would provide the capital and expertise for the projectwhile the government agency would be the managing agent and trustee forthe NCR landowners.

He said although the government had set a target of 400,000ha of NCR landto be developed into oil palm estates between 1997 and 2010, only 76,600hahad been planted so far.

Dr Masing said most of the NCR land was not surveyed and before a sizeableland bank could be created, the rights to claim such land had to beverified.

The state has about 1.5 million hectares of NCR land.

He said there were other factors that caused the shortfall in meeting thetarget of planting some 30,000ha a year.

These included convincing the landowners to form land banks and “fightingoff” the so-called educated detractors from town who were out to changethe thinking of NCR landowners, he added.

Dr Masing sought the help of elected representatives, community chiefs andadministrators to support such land development.