STATE GOVT LAND POLICY MAIN BARRIER TO BAMBOO INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT -- JOHARI

KUALA LUMPUR, July 9 (Bernama) -- The main barrier in the development of Malaysia's bamboo industry, which is still small, is the state governments’ land policies, said Plantation and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani. 

He said that it was difficult for the state governments to provide their land for bamboo cultivation as they were more interested in oil palm cultivation. 

"Many state governments are unwilling to give us land to plant bamboo, and even though the explanation has been given, they are more interested in oil palm because they can reap the yields in three-and-a-half years.

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"The oil palm industry is more attractive because of its complete ecosystem from upstream, mainstream, and downstream, with a large export value of over RM100 billion. It also has many downstream products with high margins, including oleochemicals. But for bamboo, it is still small,” he said.

He said this in response to a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng (BN-Tanjung Piai) who wanted to know about the government's initiative to discuss bamboo development with the states during an oral question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Johari pointed out that the Sarawak state government sees the potential in bamboo cultivation and had allocated 3,339 hectares (ha) of land for this purpose.

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"The process is happening, but when we explore this forest, we are also facing another issue of deforestation as the forest cover will fall below 50 per cent and we cannot do this.

"We have also approached landowners with rubber and oil palm plantations that cannot be managed to replace them with bamboo but most of them do not agree. So this is the issue we are facing. We will continue to convince them about the bamboo demand and revenue which can benefit the country in the future," he said.

On another note, Johari shared that for a commercial planting concept to be implemented, a minimum of 2,000ha land is needed to obtain sustainable bamboo production and to automatically create a downstream or mainstream industry, which is difficult if it is done on a small scale.

According to him, the export trade of bamboo and bamboo-based products in 2023 amounted to RM20.1 million compared to RM13.7 million in 2022.

"If we look at the oil palm industry, we have 5.7 million ha and 1.1 million ha for rubber but for bamboo, to date, there are only 4,000 ha...there is a big difference.

"The difficulty to get land from the state governments have also given us problems with the size we want to give to smallholders, which is too small. This is why bamboo production in this country is lower," he said.

He also shared that Malaysia still imports bamboo with an import value of RM108 million last year for downstream industries such as handicrafts involving 528 companies, furniture industry (seven companies), textile (three companies) and the construction sector (17 companies). 

"They are allowed to import because the sustainability of our supply is still far from what we had hope for," he said.

To ensure that the country's bamboo industry continues to improve, Johari said his ministry through the National Timber Industry Board has prepared the Malaysian Bamboo Industry Development Action Plan 2021-2030 as a direction.

This action plan focuses on five strategic development thrusts, namely policy strengthening and resource expansion; increasing human capital, expertise and capacity; strengthening innovation, technology and research, development & commercialisation; chain empowerment and quality assurance; and strengthening marketing strategies and smart partnerships, he said. 

According to the Bamboo Global Market Report 2024, the world bamboo industry was worth US$70.6 billion (US$1=RM4.70) in 2023 and is expected to grow to US$97.8 billion in 2028 contributed by several factors such as the diverse applications of bamboo products including the potential of bamboo as a sustainable product.

-- BERNAMA