NET RISES TO RM3.10M

Gains due to higher timber selling prices and stronger US dollar exchange rate, says company

Richard Koo said the currency factor and the higher production from existing areas under its management continued to look promising.

“Barring any adverse changes, we are hopeful of continued improvement in the group’s quarterly financial performance, even without the impact of the proposed acquisition of FMU5,” he said.

The timber and sustainable forest management group is also in the midst of acquiring the rights to a large sustainable forest management area in Sabah for the next 81 years.

“The outlook for Malaysian timber industry remains stable with stable selling price in Japan and China as well as in other Asian countries,” he added.

Koo said the outlook for demand of timber from Japan and China are promising with growth from various positive factors and a stabilising economy, as these countries are the major purchasers of plywood and round logs.

Priceworth noted it had proposed to acquire for RM260 million the rights to manage, replant and harvest the area known as FMU5 under a 100-year licence awarded in 1997.

Under the Sustainable Forest Management Licence Agreement (SFMLA), FMU5 is be to planted, rehabilitated and harvested under the principles of sustainable forest management and environmental conservation for economic, environmental and social purposes.

With 81 years remaining, the 101,161ha FMU is to be managed as Industrial Tree Plantation (ITP) and Natural Forest Management (NFM), with about 12,200ha to be returned to the Forestry Department Sabah as conservation area and 9,152ha set aside for forest reserves.

As part of the acquisition exercise, Priceworth is also planning to raise funds via a Singapore Exchange listing for its subsidiary GSR Pte Ltd, the vehicle for acquiring FMU5. Aside from owning FMU5, GSR will also own Priceworth’s plywood manufacturing sectoral change.

It follows that a digital competitiveness framework must encompass organisational, institutional and structural elements. The IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking captures such elements through three factors; knowledge, technology and future readiness.

Knowledge refers to the necessary infrastructure, which underlies the process of digital transformation through the discovery, understanding and learning of new technologies. Technology assesses the overall context through which the development of digital technologies is enabled.

This context includes a supportive regulatory framework which allows for the efficient performance of business activities and the enforcement of relevant arm through acquiring sister company Sinora Sdn Bhd.

Recently, the Sabah Forestry Department gave its approval for operations to commence in Compartments 57 and 58 within FMU5.

Priceworth through subsidiary Sinora Sdn Bhd, which also holds extraction rights over FMU5, is close to completing most of the major operational works required from road and bridge repair to the establishment of the main camp, and expects harvesting to begin this month.

Priceworth is hopeful that based on the timber industry’s ballpark benchmarks, the FMU5 operation may generate a profit of RM100 million per year. regulation while encouraging business development and innovation.

Future readiness examines the level of preparedness of an economy to assume its digital transformation. Competitiveness requires that available digital technologies be “absorbed” by society. The absorption of digital technologies needs particular adaptive attitudes, including the willingness of a society to participate in digital-related processes, for example, to engage in Internet purchases.

A complete discussion of the methodology used to calculate all the rankings produced by the IMD World Competitiveness Centre is available on our website (https://www.imd.org/wcc). Arturo Bris, José Caballero and Christos Cabolis