Bandar Seri Begawan - The Brunei government is currently in discussion with a Thai-based rice processing supplier to build a rice processing plant which is set to upgrade the country's current rice processing output.

In an interview with The Brunei Times, Charoen Pokphand Engineering (CPE) representatives said that once an agreement has been reached with the government, they will immediately start work on building the processing plant which is expected to be completed by mid-2010.

Charoen Pokphand Engineering is among the many vendors who has set up shop at the Agriculture and Agrifood Expo 2009 at the Tungku Agricultural Development Area.

The CPE representatives said that the high technology facility is expected to increase the rice processing output by four metric tonnes per hour maximum, which comes to approximately 50 to 60 tonnes a day.

According to Brunei's agriculture statistics, the rice industry in 2008 saw local production of 911.3 metric tonnes while import was at 31,353 metric tonnes. The total usage per capita is estimated at 80.1kg each person per year.

Currently the estimate cost of the project is being studied by the company which will utilise high performance machinery from Japanese-based company, Satake.

The CPE representative said chat the company knew about the potential of the project from His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam's call to build up and expand food processing, adding that "This is a good time to showcase our technology here."

"This will upgrade how rice is being processed here, the quality of the rice will be nearly the same as the ones exported from Thailand," said the CPE representative.

He spoke of Brunei's variety, particularly Leila, having room for more improvements and stated that "If you have good materials, you can have good quality rice. This facility will provide good quality."

Additionally, upon the completion of the rice processing plant, CPE is planning to open up a Post Harvest Engineering System facility, which is expected to further improve the rice processing and the quality of the rice seeds.-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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