Govt To Seek Other Food Import Sources If Thai Supply Insufficient

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 9 (Bernama) -- The Agriculture and Agro-based Industry Ministry will resort to importing food, especially vegetables, from other countries if the supply from Thailand is inadequate due to the major flood that hit the neighbouring country. Its minister Noh Omar said the ministry was still monitoring the import of food from Thailand. "Our biggest import from Thailand is cili padi, whereby almost 40 per cent is imported from the country. If the supply is short, we will need to import from other countries like China, Vietnam and Indonesia," he told a news conference at the Parliament lobby, here, on Tuesday night. Noh said at the moment, the supply of cili padi from Thailand was about 1,900 tonnes this month compared to 2,000 tonnes last month. "This is only 100 tonnes less, so the ministry will continue to monitor so that traders do not take advantage of the situation by raising the price," he said. On the issue of the National Feedlot Corporation (NFC), Noh denied Opposition allegations that he and Prime Minister Najib Razak had lied to the House on the soft loan given to NFC. He said this was unethical of them as members of Parliament by making allegations without obtaining prior explanation. He was commenting on the statement by Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) strategic director Rafizi Ramli that the entire fund of RM250 million had been fully channelled into NFC's account on March 31, 2009. (US$1=RM3.13) Noh said only RM180 million had been withdrawn up to October this year and based on the audit report, only RM134.72 million withdrawn up to December 2010. "Besides that, the RM250 million was in the form of a loan and not given straight away to NFC as it required the approval and support of the technical committee before being channelled to NFC. "It was made in stages based on the justification given by NFC to the committee and only when the committee was satisfied, would it give its support for the Finance Ministry to make the payment," he said. Noh also challenged the Opposition to operate one of the 30 satellite farms under NFC which was still not in operation and prove that they could produce 600 cattle as yielded by the corporation now. -- BERNAMA Malaysia