MALAYSIA: Greenyield eyes rubber estate management

Greenyield Bhd, an agro-technology solutions provider, is eyeing affordable and suitable land in South-East Asia to move into the upstream activity of managing rubber estates.

"We are looking at Cambodia and Indonesia. We have to look at several areas like stable government, availability of workforce, acceptable inflationary index, suitable and affordable land," said its group managing director Don Tham Foo Keong after the company's annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur on 22 Dec. 2010.

Greenyield has also partnered funeral services provider Nirvana Memorial Park Sdn Bhd to plant up 1,000 acres with high yielding rubber trees in Kelantan, Malaysia.

Their 30:70 joint venture company, Melati Aman Sdn Bhd, was granted rights to plant latex timber clones on the state land for 50 years to 2059 by the Kelantan state government.

Tham said the RM1 million investment was worthwhile with the SMR 20 rubber price at RM14 per kg currently.

He said Greenyield was moving upstream to manage rubber estates as it had the expertise.

"Rather than giving advisory to plantation operators, we believe we can do it for ourselves.

"Rubber plantation will be our growth focus for the next few years," he added.

For its current financial year ending 31 July 2011, Tham said the company was cautiously confident of its prospects, provided SMR 20 price remained stable at above RM8 per kilo.

However, he said there were concerns of the risk of a stronger ringgit impacting Greenyield's bottomline.

The company exports 80% of its total production with the transactions denominated in the US dollar and euro. For the current financial year, Tham said the company was also aiming for a 10% growth in sales, as Greenyield was selling more of its Artstone plant pots to Japan and China.

"We also hope for good recovery in US and Europe, as most of our plant pots shipments are to these markets," he said.

Asked on their latex stimulant business, Tham said Ghana was a new market for Greenyield.

(Syed Rashid Ali, Karachi, Pakistan)