KUALA LUMPUR, Wed. 7 February, 2002 (NSTP) — Rubber smallholders will bediscouraged from replanting their land with oil palm in a bid to ensurethere is sufficient latex for downstream activities in the country andthose who insist on doing so will lose the government subsidy.

Primary Industries Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik told the NewStraits Times that the replanting subsidy will only be offered tosmallholders who replant their land with rubber trees.

The move is to counter the declining rubber production in Malaysia, whichwas once the world's leading producer of the commodity, from becoming anet importer.

The New Straits Times on Jan 15 reported that Malaysia was on the road tobecoming a major importer, with domestic production declining andconsumption on the rise.

Statistics showed that the import-export gap for raw rubber narrowed to80,000 tonnes in the first nine months of last year from 770,000 tonnes in1993.

Lim said his ministry wants to ensure the country's target of maintainingat least 800,000 hectares of rubber to produce some 800,000 tonnes ofrubber is met.

Malaysia has 1.26 million hectares of land planted with rubber.

"We need rubber smallholders to replant their land with rubber duringreplanting season and not change totally to oil palm. We have been losingrubber plantations eve-ry year for the past decade. We have to stop this.

"Here we are not talking about improving the rubber production's decliningtrend. We are finding it difficult to make the smallholders maintain theirhectarage, so we are not thinking about in-creasing them," he said.

Lim added that rubber planters were inclined towards replanting their landwith oil palm despite the areas being unsuitable for the crop because theybelieve they can earn more.

This, he said, had resulted in rubber hectarage declining drastically from2.4 million hectares to the existing 1.26 million.