PANTAI REMIS, Jan 27 (Bernama) -- Primary Industries Minister, Datuk SeriDr Lim Keng Yaik on Monday said that the high price of palm oil shouldencourage plantation companies to embark on replanting of oil palm treesas the price could fetch RM2,000 per tonne in future.Lim said that at the moment, he was not happy with the slow replantingexercise and warned the plantation companies and smallholders the dangerof depending on old and unproductive trees.He said when the Government offered incentives of RM1,000 per hectare forreplanting between end of 2001 and July, 2002, a total of 170,000 hectaresof oil palm trees, aged some 25 years, had been felled and replantednationwide.Lim said replanting had pushed up the price of palm oil in the globalmarket to about RM1,600 per tonne now and it could even achieve theRM2,000 mark if the process was continued."But I am not happy with the progress now...how long you want to extractfrom 25 old trees. Plantations should get clones with higher yield so thatwe can stay ahead of our competitor, Indonesia in terms of cost," he saidafter attending a temple ceremony in Ladang UIE near here.He said the ministry was monitoring the situation but had not decidedwhether to reintroduce the incentive scheme for replanting although somefunds were still available.The minister said big plantation companies and smallholders should emulatethe success of Teluk Intan-based United Plantations Bhd (UP) in optimisingtheir production, minimise production costs and taking care the welfare ofits workers.He said UP's production cost was about RM500 to RM520 per hectare and forother firms between RM650 and RM700 and in Felda as high as RM900."They should also not just look at bank accounts when the price is highbut instead look after the welfare of workers. A satisfied worker is ahighly productive worker," he added.Lim also said he would be visiting India, Myanmar and Bangladesh from Feb17 to explore new market for palm oil, source for foreign workers andnegotiate with the Indian Government to reduce the import tariff on palmoil.He said at the moment there was discrimination against palm oil as importduty for crude palm oil and process palm oil stood at 65 percent and 85percent respectively compared to soya's 45 percent and 50 percent only."They want to look after their local farmers but oil palm is limited toKerala only. Because of the difference in tariff rates, our palm oil isabout US$90 higher than soya oil in the Indian market," he added.Besides the discrimination in tariff, Malaysia is also facing competitionfrom Indonesia as the neighbouring country was selling palm oil at US$10to US$20 cheaper to India and shipping the product faster as it is nearer,he added.He said India should give priority to Malaysia as the country had beengiven the contract to build the northern section of the double trackrailway project between Ipoh and Padang Besar.-- BERNAMA