http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/smart-to-expand-palm-oil-plantations/389720
Smart to Expand Palm Oil Plantations
Sunanda Creagh | August 05, 2010
President director of SMART Daud Dharsono speaks in an interview in Jakarta on
Thursday. Indonesian palm oil giant PT SMART, accused by green groups of
clearing valuable forest, aims to expand its plantations by 50,000 hectares a
year, Dharsono said on Thursday. (Reuters Photo/Crack Palinggi)
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Indonesia. Palm oil giant Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology, accused by
green groups of clearing valuable forest, aims to expand its plantations by
50,000 hectares a year, the company's president director said on Thursday.
Smart last month rejected fresh claims by Greenpeace that the firm was clearing
peatland and high conservation value forests that shelter endangered species
and trap vast amounts of greenhouse gases.
Smart runs the Indonesia palm oil operations of its Singapore-listed parent
company, Golden Agri-Resources. GAR is controlled by the Widjaja family, whose
business empire Sinar Mas has interests in pulp and paper, finance and
property.
The bitter dispute between the palm oil industry and environmentalists has
broader implications for Indonesia, the world's biggest palm oil producer.
It wants to expand crude palm oil production and boost economic growth but has
also promised to cut greenhouse emissions by as much as 41 percent from
business-as-usual levels by 2020 - largely through curbing deforestation.
Smart's president director, Daud Dharsono, said that the Greenpeace campaign
had not affected the firm, which currently has around 430,000 hectares of
plantations.
Smart's shares have risen 32.4 percent this year, beating the overall index
which is up about 18 percent.
"Smart will grow and expand its palm oil plantations," said Dharsono, 54,
adding that Smart and GAR had a total of 100,000 hectares in its land bank,
mostly in Central and West Kalimantan.
"Our planting expansion rate is 50,000 hectares per annum. If we can get new
allocations, we will maintain that rate," he said, adding that the firm planned
to apply for additional land allocations from the government before the land
bank ran out.
"We will not necessarily wait until it's gone. We will mainly concentrate on
West and Central Kalimantan."
Unilever and Nestle dropped Smart as a supplier following the Greenpeace
reports. Industry giant Cargill has threatened to do the same if the
accusations are proven correct in an audit due to be released on August 10.
Reuters
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