J-Biotech set to sign RM250 mln investment deals by August
TAIPEI: Johor Biotechnology and Biodiversity Corp (J-Biotech) is expected to finalise investments worth RM250 million in bio-tourism and farming by August.
Its chief executive officer, Asman Shah Abd Rahman, said the company would sign agreements with two investors and one of the projects involved the establishment of an eco-retirement village.
“It involves the Australian concept of the care for the retirees and the rehabilitation using biomedicine. Meanwhile, the second project involves the setting up of marine hatchery centre,” he told Bernama here.
He said this at the four-day Taiwan Bio-Technology Conference, Exhibition and Cooperation 2017. J-Biotech is participating in the conference, which started on June 29, to create awareness of its products and services.
Asman said Johor was on track to achieve its target of becoming the country’s largest producer of organic products by 2020.
“This is because one of the state projects to meet the target, BioDesaru Food Valley, has received good responses from not only local investors but also the foreigners,” he said.
He said the 3,600-hectare project was managed by Bio Desaru Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of J-Biotech Holdings Sdn Bhd which was set up by J-Biotech.
Currently, 90 per cent of the area were occupied, involving investments of over RM1.6 billion in 30 projects, he said.
Asman said the two biggest investors were from Thailand and the majority were domestic inves- tors. He added the entities were involved in three key activities – bio-farming, bio-agriculture and bio-aquaculture.However, in order to complement these three activities, Bio-Desaru also introduced the bio-tourism segment as another component that would spur economic activity in the area, he said.
“Annually, Bio-Desaru produces about 90 tonnes of black pepper; 2.6 billion shrimp seeds and 280,000 broilers. It also produces 800,000 chicken eggs daily for local and Singapore markets. This has not taken into account the production of vegetables and others,” he said.
Asman said the corporation has been aggressive in establishing cooperation with Taiwan in terms of exchanging innovative ideas in various fields, especially plantation and agriculture, as the country was no longer foreign to technology sophistication.