Liew
SANDAKAN: Sabah United Chinese Chambers of Commerce (SUCCC) president, Tan Sri Andrew Liew Sui Fatt appealed to the State Government to reconsider its decision to stop palm oil related operations in Sabah to avoid worse financial and social implications.
Liew said that SUCCC appreciates and supports the State Government’s endeavours to curb the spread of Covid-19.
However, they are more concerned by the impacts on the social economy caused by the unprecedented closure of palm oil estates and mills operations.
The decision to extend the closure palm oil estates and mills operations (until April 14) will inevitably cause hardship to the industry especially smallholders and kampong (village) folks whose livelihoods are depend on the estates and mills to sustain their living, and SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) which have bank loans to repay.
“With depressed CPO (Crude Palm Oil) market price and low yield commencing from 2018 June to 2019 November, palm oil industry suffered huge losses. In early January, however, CPO market price rose to over RM3,000 per ton but only lasted until end of February.
With the prevailing low crop yields for these few months the palm oil industry could hardly recover from the said losses.
“Transportation companies are also hit hard by the MCO (Movement Control Order) as they are not allowed to transport fertilizers and CPO from mills to refineries and to ports and also fresh fruit bunches (FFB) from estates to mills. This will have huge chain effect on the whole industry.
“If oil palm estates are not allowed to operate or to harvest their fruits to be delivered to the mills, eventually planters will suffer huge losses as unharvested fruits will be left to rot and mills would not accept overripe or rotten fruits with high fatty acid content,” Liew said.
He added that SUCCC noted that plantations, mills and related industries in West Malaysia were exempted from the MCO, and he hoped the State Government would follow suit.
“We will try our best to adhere to conditions (if any) set by the state if we are allowed to be exempted.
“Thousands of Sabahan rely on the income from the industry value chain.
“It is well known that oil palm estates are facing labour shortage for many years. If the palm oil related operations continue to be closed, workers’ wages will be much affected and as a result they will opt to leave and return to their homeland (90 percent are Indonesian). Once they leave they would not come back.
“Revenue on Sabah Sale Tax of 7.5 percent on palm oil will be substantially decreased and all palm oil related industries will suffer losses,” he said.