Sawit Sumbermas renews management

"Although the natural palm oil industry had difficulties due to El Nino last year and is still suffering the impacts this year and the next, we are optimistic that the company's financials will continue to improve, as can be seen from the positive progress in financial indicators,"  President Director of PT Sawit Sumbermas Sarana Tbk. (SSMS) Vallauthan Subraminam told the press after the company's Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders (RUPSLB) in Jakarta, Wednesday.

At the RUPSLB attended by hundreds of shareholders, shareholders agreed to replace Rimbun Situmorang as president director, replacing him with Vallauthan Subraminam and appointing Ramzi Sastra as director.

Vallauthan said that the company's new management is optimistic that it will be able to transform the plantation company whose palm oil plantation is located in Central Kalimantan into a thriving palm oil industry.

Independent Commissioner Marzuki Usman said that the appointment of a new president director is to refresh the company's efforts to address future challenges in the palm oil industry, which are increasingly difficult, especially when the government has stated that the industry is one of the main pillars of the Indonesian economy.

"This is certainly a major challenge for the palm oil industry in Indonesia, so oil palm plantation companies in Indonesia must be able to grow faster," he said.

Vallauthan said that the company's financial report for the first half of 2016 showed that the company was able to pocket a net income of Rp194.8 billion. "Even though the price of crude palm oil in 2015 was less and started to improve in the second quarter of 2016, the company's performance has still not improved because it was also impacted by the sharp decline in production," he said.

In terms of business development, he said, the company is open to opportunities to acquire in order to maintain and expand its areas outside of its current plantations. The area currently under cultivation is 70,940 hectares, and as of the end of 2015, the amount of fresh fruit bunches processed in the factory reached 1.35 million tons, producing 3,121,238 tons of CPO.

"The company will continue to increase its oil palm plantation area from its current 100,000 hectares by acquiring new lands," he said.

Editor: Ruslan Burhani

http://www.antaranews.com/berita/581913/sawit-sumbermas-ganti-direksi