30/3/06 PETALING JAYA (The Star)  -  The agriculture sector is widely expected to be the main focus of the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) to be announced tomorrow.

The sector, expected to be the country's third engine of economic growth after manufacturing and services, is one that receives close attention from the Prime Minister as he had often emphasised the importance of modernising the agricultural sector and making it more dynamic.

The focus is likely to be on re-orienting the sector towards more modern, higher value-added and commercial scale production.

New areas will also be opened up for agriculture in the Northern Belt, the eastern corridor that includes Sabah and Sarawak, and the southern corridor.

QL Resources Bhd expects the 9MP to continue along the same lines of the Third National Agricultural Policy (NAP3) (1998 - 2010) emphasising bio-technology, food self sufficiency, productivity and value-added activities. The company expects to benefit from the 9MP, having aligned itself with the national agricultural policy.

“We have long aligned ourselves with government initiatives in the NAP3.

“We are in most of the sub-sectors such as aquaculture, deep-sea fishing, livestock and we are also in oil palm. Any incentives provided should continue to benefit the industry,” said group accountant Freddy Yap.

The NAP3, among other objectives, aims to achieve food self-sufficiency in Malaysia by 2010.

Bio-diesel and pharmaceutical company Hovid Bhd said the anticipated re-emphasis on agriculture should be a good thing.

“Bio-agriculture is a good avenue to develop economic growth with the right kind of incentives provided,” said managing director David Ho. 

He pointed out, however, that Malaysia's bio-diesel industry did not conform to global conventions.

“The rest of the world uses a type of processed palm oil known as metahexal in bio-diesel, while Malaysia is planning to use 5% palm oil mixed with diesel,” Ho said .

He said this had resulted in engine manufacturers wondering what to do, and unsure of how their engines would perform on the different form of bio-diesel, he said.

The Malaysian Rubber Glove Manufacturers' Association, in saying that the emphasis on agriculture was a good move, hoped that the government would encourage more plantations and smallholders to grow rubber trees along with adequate infrastructure for processing plants that process rubber into latex concentrates for the consumption of glove manufacturers.

Glove manufacturers are currently importing NR latex concentrate from neighbouring countries such as Thailand and Indonesia to fulfil production capacity, the association said.

Golden Hope Plantations Bhd said it hoped the government would consider channelling a portion of the fossil fuel subsidy to bio-diesel to make the price of bio-diesel attractive to consumers.

“In Europe, for instance, bio-diesel is tax-free. Petroleum products, however, are heavily taxed,” GHope said in a statement to StarBiz.

“We are at the moment in various stages of setting up four bio-diesel plants, three in Malaysia and one in the Netherlands, at a combined cost of RM260mil.

“By end-2007, these plants will be producing 390,000 tonnes of bio-diesel,” it added.