RAMU SUGAR LTD TO TRANSFORM THE MARKHAM VALLEY- 3rd September 2007

To become the premiere agri-industrial company and a catalyst to transform the Markham valleys into the agricultural food bowl of PNG.
This was the statement issued by Chief Executive Officer for Ramu Sugar Limited Mr. Michael Knight, during the reception of delegates from the Association of Development Financing Institutions in the Pacific who traveled to Lae to visit project sites funded by hosts, National Development Bank.

Mr. Knight highlighted the different projects that they have recently embarked on such as the oil palm and cashew nut projects with crude oil to be refined in Europe and cashew nuts, which are slightly bigger in size, to be processed in Vietnam.

He said that with 45% of beef being produced locally Ramu has intended to further increase production of beef without interfering with imports and also increasing the capacity of the abattoir.

“We are diversifying out of sugar and beef and into cashew nut and oil palm,” he said.

Mr. Knight also mentioned that they would be looking to introduce new products such as bio-fuel, peanuts, noni products and forestry, which is a project with ACIAR.

He stressed that the key philosophy of Ramu Sugar is to involve smallholder farmers to look at producing complementary products.

This is due to the fact that 30 to 35, 000 people in the area rely on the company for income.

Ramu Sugar Limited is also looking at a name change, which will be launched by the Prime Minister later on in the year.

On conclusion of the presentation by Mr. Knight delegates expressed their admiration and congratulated Ramu Sugar Ltd. for their initiative and also the management of the National Development Bank for their support in establishing such an impressive partnership with Ramu Sugar.