JPB To Export Greenhouse Products Starting 2013

Source From (Bernama): http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v6/newsbusiness.php?id=678088

Published: on 05 July 2012

From Amer Hamzah Md Sap

KAGOSHIMA (Japan), July 4 (Bernama) -- JPB Asia Pacific Sdn Bhd, a supplier of agricultural products in Malaysia, plans to start exporting high value, high yield agriculture produce from its greenhouses beginning early 2013.

Its Managing Director, Haji Mazli Mansor, said for a start JPB would be exporting Japanese pumpkins.

JPB, which is importing Holland cabbage from farms managed by its associate partner in Holland, would start cultivating Japanese pumpkins on its trial greenhouse plots.

Towards this end, JPB has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with MRT Japan Co Ltd, which is a Japanese perishable goods supplier in Japan and which also exports to Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and the United States, he told Malaysian journalists who covered the signing of the MoA here on Monday.

Under the agreement, the two would incorporate a joint venture company called MRT Malaysia Sdn Bhd, a month after signing the agreement.

MRT would hold 51 per cent interest in the joint venture and JPB the rest.

MRT would manage, operate and market products from the greenhouses which would be built using French greenhouse technology.

Both sides are expected to invest about RM105 million to build 100 greenhouses in Ara Kuda, Penang by 2015.

JPB, which would be assisted by the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority (NCIA) would be also training about 100 farmers to become greenhouse entrepreneurs.

"When fully operational, the greenhouse are expected to produce about 5,000 tonnes of various high quality, high yield perishable agriculture products," he said.

About 70 per cent of the products, such as rock melon, chillies, Japanese pumpkins and snappy peas, are targeted for export and the rest would be marketed locally (in Malaysia), he said.

This would give Malaysians the chance to buy those products at cheaper rates when compared with what they would have to pay for the same products if they were to be imported from Japan.

JPB was incorporated in 2000 as a supplier of perishable goods in Malaysia. One of its customers is KFC Malaysia.

--BERNAMA