Sarawak palm oil sector losing RM2.8bil revenue

KUCHING: The Sarawak palm oil industry has incurred revenue losses of some RM2.8bil a year due to the shortage of more than 12,000 fruit harvesters, a seminar here was told.

According to Sarawak Oil Palm Plantations Owners Association (SOPPOA) chief executive officer Sylvester Fong Tshu Kwong, the labour shortage has also resulted in the Sarawak government losing more than RM133mil a year from the collection of sales tax on palm oil. He said that as at June 2015, Sarawak had a shortfall of 12,042 harvesters. His calculation on the revenue losses was based on the average of 1.75 tonnes of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) per day harvested by one harvestor on 22 working days per month.The price of the FFBs used for the calculation was RM400 per tonne.