One big opportunity was come again for West Kalimantan Province, particularly for agriculture development. A Company group called HARIM GROUP from South Korea has visit West Kalimantan on March 14 2008 a go. They purpose is to looking a land for corn development in West Kalimantan. According to the leader of this group information, Halim Group is consisting of 40 companies. Most of the companies are involved in agribusiness and food business. In fact, Harim group is the number one of livestock market share in Korea. Until now, Harim Group has been invest around 1.6 Billion US Dollar in several foreign countries like China, Vietnam, and Philippine. And the target for investment in the future is Indonesia. During the increasing of corn consumption in Korea, the demand for corn is also increasing. This is why Harim Group starts to looking some land resources to develop corn in order to fill Korea corn market.The land that they looking for in West Kalimantan are quite large which is 100,000 ha. So when we count in Indonesia currency the number is al least Rp. 400.000.000.000. This large amount money of course might give some impact on economics activities in West Kalimantan Province particularly for farmer’s economy.
Regarding the Harim Group plan to invest corn development in West Kalimantan, the government of West Kalimantan is very please to welcome it, and looking forward for the project realization. The Government of West Kalimantan province is also ready with the number of land which is they looking for. Most of the potential Land and available land for corn development is located in Kuburaya regency. The problem is that the land is not in one concentrate area. It is difficult to find one big plain area with wide around 100,000 hectares. It is not only because the topography reason, but also the land status. Most of the land in West Kalimantan is already belong to farmers even though it’s not certified yet. Even so, the farmers are ready to make a partnership incase of company want to use their land to develop corn. Some land is belonging to state, but the number is small. Regarding the topography reason, most of land is extent in one big plain around less in 300 hectares. So that is why it little bit difficult to find one concentrate area with wide 100,000 ha.
So it is not a big deal with the land availability, because West Kalimantan still has a lot area for many kind of agriculture investment. The cooperation with local people should be taken as a main concern to make investment easier to take including to solve land status problems. West Kalimantan Government is also giving some incentive to make investor easy to take action.
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