LOSS-MAKING timber concessionaire Priceworth International Bhd expects to see change of fortune with the steady recovery in the global plywood market demand over the next six months.
Yesterday, the Sandakan (Sabah)-based company which is also an integrated timber operator (both upstream and downstream) announced that its log production volume for the month of May 2021 was 3,748.28 cubic metre (April 2021: 3,992.03 cubic metre).
The slight decrease in May’s production as compared to the previous month was mainly due to the harvested log being on transit to the downstream processing mills.
The group has resumed its logs harvesting operation in March 2021. Following this log production has gradually increased in April and May from March.
With the resumption of log harvesting, the group has managed to supply the raw materials to its downstream processing mills of its wholly owned subsidiary, Sinora Sdn Bhd.
“Following the revival of the plywood manufacturing plants, Sinora Sdn Bhd has resumed the plywood export in May 2021,” commented Priceworth’s managing director Lim Nyuk Foh. “With the global supply chain still being disrupted by the pandemic, plywood prices are expected to increase gradually.”
For its 3Q FY6/2021, the company narrowed its net loss to RM3.79 mil from RM28.56 in the same period a year ago on the back of a revenue of RM1.36 mil (3Q FY6/2020: RM1.8 mil).
As for the entire 9M FY6/2021, Priceworth’s net loss stood at RM16.85 mil (9M FY6/2020: RM43.8 mil) while its revenue totalled RM11.53 mil (9M FY6/2020: RM19.11 mil).
The group currently manages timber concessions totalling to 27,900 hectares under the Sustainable Forest Management regime.
Approximately half of the timber concession area had been reforested with Priceworth having commenced harvesting of its own planted timbers in March itself.
“The logs harvested by the group are mainly supplied to its downstream integrated timber processing for plywood and sawn timber manufacturing,” Lim pointed out. “Currently, the group’s major export market is Japan.”
At the close of trading yesterday, Priceworth was unchanged at 1 sen with 9.92 million shares traded, thus valuing the company at RM50 mil. – June 23, 2021
