5/7/06 (Angolapress) YANGON - Myanmar has established its first modern palm oil refinery plant here to help meet local edible oil demand, the local Weekly Eleven News reported Wednesday.

The Yuzana Palm Oil Refinery Plant and Dry Fractionation Plant, set up recently by the private-run Yuzana Edible Oil Group, will produce 200 tons of edible oil daily and 40 percent of the current domestic market demand will be met, the report quoted the Yuzana group as saying.

The plant will initially distribute about 2,000 tons of edible oil and its products monthly and by 2010, it will go into full production and distribution, the sources said.

According to official statistics, Myanmar needs over 300,000 tons of edible oil annually but it produces only 200,000 tons and has to import over 100,000 tons of the oil every year at a price of 500 US dollars per ton.

Myanmar has been placing emphasis on growing edible oil crops in a bid to meet domestic consumption, outlining three major items of crops -- groundnut, sesame and sunflower to be grown in the three divisions of Sagaing, Mandalay and Magway.

In the 2004-05 fiscal year, Myanmar produced 249,000 tons of groundnut out of 654,880 hectares grown, 197,000 tons of sesame out of 1.46 million hectares and 94,000 tons of sunflower out of 511,100 hectares, the statistics also show.

Other figures indicate that oil palm cultivated area in Myanmar now covers over 52,650 hectares and there still remains tens of thousands of hectares of vacant and fallow land suitable for reclamation for such crop plantations.

Meanwhile, Myanmar will start a 14-million-dollar three-year oil crop development project soon in the current fiscal year of 2006-07 (April-March) with a loan assistance provided by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to boost oil crop production, earlier reports said.

The project, which also involves the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), will help reduce Myanmar`s reliance on imported oil products.