Felda halts foreign investments

Chairman Isa Samad says the company supports the government's call for efforts to strengthen the ringgit.

KUALA LUMPUR: Felda will not make any new investment abroad in response to Putrajaya’s call on government-owned companies (GLCs) to do so to help strengthen the ringgit.

The company will continue to invest inshore, according to its chairman, Mohd Isa Abdul Samad.

He said the government, in making the call, was drawing from its experience of past recessions. “I believe the Prime Minister is experienced enough to make the right decisions,” he said at a press conference yesterday.

“We need to make adjustments. We will continue to invest within the country while immediately stopping foreign investments at the moment.”

Yesterday, in his address to announce adjustments to the national budget, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak said the government was encouraging GLCs and government-owned investment companies (GLICs) to invest inshore as one of the measures to reverse the slide of the ringgit.

Isa agreed that this would be a good step against recesssion.

He also said Felda must control the production of palm oil in order to prevent the price of the commodity from further falls. The objective, he said, was to achieve market equilibrium.

“Prices are low at the moment,” he said. “We must not allow supply to exceed demand, but of course we’ll need co-operation from Indonesia and other palm oil producing countries.”