Improved financial performance Tradewinds

Tradewinds (M) Bhd, a related company which controls 60 percent of farm supply and 50 per cent of national sugar supply is expected to record a better financial performance this year. Its chairman, Datuk Syed Abdul Jabbar Shahabudin said the expectation is based on many factors, including increased productivity and price high crude palm oil, the forward purchase rice at competitive prices and projected increases in exports of sugar.

"Tradewinds will add three more palm oil processing plant involving an investment of RM120 million, with the first building in Kuala Suai, Miri, Sarawak this year.
"In addition to rice mill upgrade, we will also add two storage warehouses of sugar this year, which as a whole suggests 2011 as another good year to the Tradewinds," he said after the group's Annual General Meeting in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. Present managing director Bakry Hamzah and Tradewinds Plantation Bhd chief executive, Chan Seng Fatt. The group recorded its highest pre-tax profit amounted to RM825.546 million in the year ended December 31, 2010, compared to RM349.225 million in the previous year on the income of RM5.575 billion . Syed Abdul Jabbar, said the proposed acquisition of the entire interest in Mardec Ltd by Prisma Spectrum Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tradewinds Plantation, of the Semi Bayu Sdn Bhd, is expected to be finalized in the third quarter of this year and will start contributing to the group's net profit as early as the fourth quarter this year. He said, for a start Mardec expected to contribute about RM20 million to RM30 million net profit a year Tradewinds Plantations. Meanwhile, Bakry said they will focus better to improve the rice harvest this year in addition to receiving adequate security of supply from abroad, particularly from Vietnam and Thailand. of rice country, he said enough. Malaysia, he raised the country's rice reserves to 292,000 tons from 92.000 tons during the Asian financial crisis of the past. The amount is enough to cover an emergency supply for six months. Tradewinds in December last year took over 54 per cent stake in Padiberas Nasional Bhd (Bernas). The amount of rice sold BERNAS grow by 1.6 percent to 1.33 million tonnes last year, compared with 31.1 tonnes the previous year. Tradewinds is dominated by Tan Sri Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary recorded a profit before tax RM183.949 million in the first financial quarter ended March 31, 2011, increased 34.7 percent compared to RM136.537 million the same quarter the previous year. It is derived from income rose to RM1.461 billion from RM1.299 billion.