Datuk Redza Rafiq
PENANG: The Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) has teamed up with JPB Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd to develop the Northern Corridor Closed Greenhouse Programme to increase cultivation of high-value crops such as chillies and water melons.
NCIA chief executive Datuk Redza Rafiq said the first greenhouse programme in the northern corridor is expected to create 80 jobs for 20 contract farmers. Each farmer would earn at least RM5,000 a month, he said.
“We’ve started the process. The first phase at Mayfield Estate in Tasek Gelugor costs RM19.05 million. Every greenhouse unit will have 9,000 crops which will have the capacity to produce 54 metric tonnes of yield a year.
“Our objective is to create jobs and business opportunities via NCIA’s partnership with the private sector like JPB Asia Pacific,” he told reporters after the programme was launched by Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop in Tasek Gelugor here yesterday.
Redza said 25 greenhouse units would be built on a 65.2ha site where priority would be given to chillies and water melons.
Besides selling locally, the chillies and water melons would be exported to Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and Dubai, he added.
Earlier, Nor Mohamed, in his speech, welomed the NCIA-JPB Asia Pacific joint venture which would improve not only the people’s quality of life and also the country’s economy in tandem with the national vision to transform Malaysia into an high-income nation by 2020.
He said the economy’s landscape over the past 50 years has to be changed with a new model that could generate higher productivity and income.
“Under the previous economic model, in the first 50 years, it was clear that we used more investments, capital, land and labour.
“In the second 50 years starting from here until 2020 and thereafter, we cannot continue to merely rely on this system.
“We need to invent another system to move forward. It’s here we have to find from now specific areas. Areas considered to be specific, innovative and productive so that the people engaged in these areas can earn high income,” added Nor Mohamed, who is also Tasek Gelugor Member of Parliament. — Bernama