Group President and Chief Executive Officer Datuk Zakaria Arshad said the group plans to acquire several parcels of land including one owned by a private company in Malaysia.

He was speaking during the financial result performance for 2017 earlier today.

Zakaria said the group is prioritising to acquire CPO land located in the South-east Asia region, especially Indonesia.

“We are still in the preliminary stage but we are giving more priority to Indonesia and we are looking for more greenfield land,” he said.

Asked on the plan for landbank acquisition in Africa, Zakaria clarified that this is due to the high demand of CPO in the country, with the cost as well as the availability of land being relatively low.

To date, the group’s total land bank size for CPO plantation is more than 400,000 hectare located in Malaysia and Indonesia.

During the media briefing, Zakaria said the group is looking to improve harvesting efficiency, and is expected to increase this year’s FFB production by 9 per cent to 4.85 million MT, while reducing CPO production ex-mill cost per MT to RM1,562.