Malaysia To Increase Cocoa Production

By Hamdan Ismail SERIAN (Sarawak, Malaysia), Feb 14 (Bernama) -- Malaysia aims to increase its annual cocoa bean production to 60,000 tonnes from the present 5,000 tonnes by 2020, Malaysian Plantation Industry and Commodities Minister, Bernard Dompok said here, Tuesday. He said the acreage for cocoa plantation area in the country would be expanded from its present 20,543 hectares to 40,000 hectares in eight years' time -- at a rate of 2,000 hectares per year. For this year, an allocation of RM17.8 million (US$5.84 million) has been approved by the Malaysian Cocoa Board (LKM) to start the development of new cocoa planting area and another RM8.4 million (US$2.75 million) to rehabilitate about 1,000 hectares of less productive or abandoned cocoa plantation projects. Dompok said that although the target would not be able to fully support the country's cocoa bean grinding capacity of over 300,000 tonnes per year, it would help to promote the crop domestically while reducing the import of cocoa beans. He said this at a press conference following the launch of LKM's Domestic Marketing Service Program and Cocoa Certification Scheme at Kampung Bunan Gega, Mongkos (Sarawak - east Malaysia), about 40 kilometres from here. "It is important for us to spend a little bit more money so that the crop can be grown here and the input (for the grinders) can be locally sourced." According to him, cocoa grinders were importing some 295,000 tonnes of cocoa beans annually from Indonesia, Ivory Coast and Ghana on an average cost of more than RM2 billion (US$656.48 million) per year. "Of course we add value to it, grind it, turn it into many forms and re-export it," he nevertheless pointed out. In his speech earlier, he said Malaysia's cocoa and cocoa products exports value for the first 11 months of last year amounted to RM3.8 billion (US$1.24 billion) with the main markets being United States, Europe, Japan and Asean countries. Among commodities, cocoa is the fourth largest export income contributor to the country after palm oil, timber and rubber. (US$1 = RM3.04) --BERNAMA