SHANGHAI, March 31 (Bernama) -- Pekan, which is the royal town of Pahang,is set to become a paper producer once it builds a mill to produce paperfrom oil palm bunches by end of this year.

Pahang Deputy Menteri Besar, Datuk Tan Mohd Aminuddin Ishak said the stategovernment was currently in the process of approving a 50-hectare landthere for the mill, which would be operated by a local company, IntegratedEsquire Sdn Bhd.

He said the company had successfully formed a strong partnership and linkwith Shanghai Zongyi Industrial Ltd, a leading paper producer in China,which had earlier ventured into the technology of producing paper from oilpalm bunches.

"Integrated Esquire has successfully gained the agreement of ShanghaiZongyi to use their technology and this is an achievement as ShanghaiZongyi is a well known multinational company in China.

"The technology is also more economical compared with the technology wehave been using before," he told reporters after attending a briefingsession by Shanghai Zongyi at their office, here Thursday.

Tan Mohd Aminuddin who is also the chairman of the state Committee forInvestment, Industrialisation and Felda Affairs, said that the project wasexpected to take off in July this year once the Environmental ImpactAnalysis (EIA) report is released by the Department of Environment.

"We would have to wait for the EIA report as the project involves theenvironment. We do not want just any project that could disturb theecological balance," he said.

Meanwhile, the managing adviser for Integrated Esquire, Datuk Hassan MohdAriffin said that all products from the project would be exported to Chinain exchange for having received the agreement from Shanghai Zongyi to usetheir technology.

He said a total of 250,000 metric tonnes of oil palm bunches would producea total of 50,000 metric tonnes of paper and that the country had the rawmaterial for such a production amount.

-- BERNAMA