Malaysia's Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority, or Risda, plans to invest MR67.5 million ($22.5 million) in Sarawak state in 2012 to replant natural rubber trees, local news reports said Thursday.
The investment will affect about 5,000 hectares of land and the amount is larger than the MR17.7 million invested from 2009 to 2011.
In Sarawak, rubber trees have been planted on about 157,163 hectares of land, consisting of 151,474 hectares of matured area and 5,689 hectares of immature area, according to Sarawak's agriculture department.
In late October, the Malaysian government allocated MR195 million for rubber replanting and new rubber cultivation programs in the country for fiscal 2011-2012.
Malaysia is the third largest rubber producer in the world, after Thailand and Indonesia, and made 916,259 mt of the commodity over January-November 2011, data from the Department of Statistics showed.
