KUALA TERENGGANU: The state government has started negotiations on the purchase of land in Kalimantan for planting oil palm.

Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said said the 9,400ha land was 35 minutes' drive from the airport in Pontianak and the price was about RM850 per hectare.

Ahmad was speaking at a Hari Raya dinner hosted by TDM Berhad in Pulau Duyong on Sunday.

He said the oil resources in the state would not last forever. Once the wells ran dry, it would need an alternative source of income which was palm oil, he added.

Ahmad said the state would want to own and operate about 100,000ha of palm oil plantations in Indonesia to generate a regular annual income of RM400 million to RM500 million.

This will require a capital investment of between RM1.3 billion and RM1.5 billion and five to six years for the project to bear fruit.

He said owing to limited agriculture land in the state, it had to invest in land abroad.

He admitted it was tricky to do business in a foreign land when the laws governing business and land matters could be amended at a short notice.

"It is imperative that dealings have to be done openly as we are representatives of the people and the temptation for quick personal gain can be too strong sometimes.

"If state executive councillors want to become rich, then they should resign from public office. And if personal monetary gain is the motive of anybody who is involved in politics, he or she has no business becoming a politician in the first place.

"The same goes for those running government-linked companies."

Ahmad said a decision would also be made soon on under-performing state GLCs.

"We will try to turn them around or close them down."