Cocoa Beans Production Target Set At 60,000 Tonnes By 2020

MIRI, Feb 19 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities has set the target to achieve cocoa beans production of 60,000 tonnes or support at least 20 per cent of the local grinding needs by 2020, said its minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok here Saturday.

He said the local cocoa beans output at present can only fulfill five per cent of the industry's grinding needs in the country.

He highlighted that local cocoa grinding factories which can grind up to 360,000 tonnes of cocoa beans were only able to process 302,366 tonnes last year.

"The cocoa beans produced for use by the local grinding industry is only at 16,000 tonnes.Malaysia needs to import 95 per cent of its cocoa beans from overseas," he explained in his speech while officiating the Sarawak Northern Region Cocoa Replanting Programme at Bekenu, about 55 kilometres from here.

According to Dompok, the land area for cocoa planting in Sarawak has been targeted to exceed 12,000 hectares by 2015 through the development of 5,000 more hectares.

The replanting programme launched by him, he said, is also one of the ministry's strategies to raise the local cocoa production yield.

"I believe Bekenu has the potential to become one of the key areas in Sarawak for cocoa production," he added.

Dompok said in 2010, the area planted with cocoa in Sarawak, was 7,970 hectares or 40 per cent of the country's total for the crop.

(Source: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsbusiness.php?id=564803)