PETALING JAYA, March 24 ― Sime Darby Plantation Bhd’s (SDP) total procurement involving Bumiputera companies reached RM2.7 billion over the past five years, including RM558 million in 2021, Minister of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperative Tan Sri Noh Omar said.

He said the procurement in 2021 was an increase of RM195 million from 2020.

"SDP’s support to Bumiputera entrepreneurs is not only limited to Bumiputera vendors registered under PPV (Vendor Development Programme) but also various procurement opportunities that have been utilised by Bumiputera entrepreneurs, who have proven to be competitive in terms of price and service quality,” he said when officiating SDP’s entrepreneur development day here today.

Besides that, he said to date, a total of 26 anchor companies had signed a memorandum of understanding with the government, through the ministry, to implement the PPV including SDP.

Noh said an application for additional allocation would be forwarded to the Ministry of Finance for the Informal Funding Scheme (SPIN) following the encouraging response.

"The ministry is also implementing various stimulus packages to facilitate entrepreneurs to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic by introducing a soft loan scheme and 12 months moratorium.

Meanwhile, SDP has announced the participation of 11 selected business partners for the Bumiputera PPV managed by the company to increase the competitiveness of Bumiputera entrepreneurs in the local and international markets.

Chief operations services officer Adi Wira Abd Razak said SDP has identified Bumiputera vendors who would collaborate on research and development projects this year in line with the plantation innovation focus.

"We would like to invite more Bumiputera companies to register as our vendors, especially companies that can introduce innovative initiatives and assist in solving the challenges of the palm oil industry,” he added. ― Bernama