Breaking News - RTRS-New Indonesia rule could hit 400 oil palm plantation cos

KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 (Reuters) - About 400 palm plantation firms in Indonesia risk having 900,000 hectares of plantations declared illegal by the forestry ministry if they cannot show permits to clear the land, a top industry official said on Tuesday.
Indonesia, the world's largest palm oil producer, has a total of 7.9 million hectares under palm cultivation and exports around 14 million tonnes of the commodity annually.
The sprawling oil palm estates in the central province of Kalimantan may be declared illegal under a government decree that applies retrospectively from 1999, Joko Supriyono, secretary general of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, told Reuters.
Most companies have just cleared the land and started operations after securing location permits from provincial or district administrations, which previous government regulations allowed, Supriyono said.