Madagascar Development

Daewoo Logistics Corp. has established "PT Daewoo Logistics Indonesia" in Indonesia for partaking in such natural resource development as Palm Plantation, Gum Plantation, Corn Farm, Coal Mining, CDM(Clean Development Mechanism) business. Through investing huge investment for Palm Oil, recognized as leading future food & energy source, PT Daewoo Logistics is trying to secure a competitive edge at the leading group in the market and intending to maximize profits in the development. In addition, PT Daewoo Logistics plans to establish Palm Oil manufacturing factory at the sight, scheming the vertical integration of planting and manufacturing of the natural resource. Daewoo Logistics Corp. will participate in Gum Tree Plantation Project with the scope of 500,000 ha project agreed upon between Korean and Indonesian government. PT Daewoo Logistics Indonesia in Indonesia is pursuing a Corn Farm Development plan to secure & develop a major food resource. Test Cultivation has b...

What have Madagascar and South Korea got in common? On the face of it, nothing. The former is a country in development, the second is an economic power. One is in Africa, the other in Asia. The Malagasy have uncontaminated land. The Koreans lack cultivatable land. Madagascar has 28 inhabitants per square kilometre. South Korea has 493 inhabitants per square kilometre. Two countries that are different from each other but that today have Daewoo in common as well as neocolonialism without capital. Tronchetti and Colaninno have been leading the way even abroad. Once upon a time they gifted necklaces and shining stones to indigenous people in exchange for every type of good. Today not even that. South Korea needs corn, palm oil and agricultural goods. Madagascar has land. Daewoo signed an agreement with the Malagasy government. The handing over of 1.3 million hectares of cultivatable land for 99 years. More than half the cultivatable land in the country (2.5 million hectares). It’s all for ...

Rio Tinto’s titanium dioxide-ilmenite business extends back to the 1950s and has been part of its long-standing strategy within the industrial minerals area. The company sees titanium dioxide as a good business to be in. It is a low-cost producer and roughly produces a third of the world’s titanium dioxide feedstock capacity. Rio Tinto recovers more than a third of the sector’s cash flows and net incomes, which is consistent with the company’s strategy. The company sees its titanium dioxide business as continuing to develop for decades. In 1989, Rio Tinto acquired Quebec Iron & Titanium (QIT), which for long has been the leading producer of titanium oxide feedstocks for the pigment industry. About 95% of titanium oxide goes into paints and plastics as pigment. During the course of the 1950s, QIT came up with a new process for producing a feedstock, referred to as slag, for the pigment sector. During the 1960s, regulations forbade the use of lead carbonate in paint and at that time ...

I would like to raise another point that may be worth considering (putting all the environmental problems that may result from this deal aside for awhile): I might have been misinformed but from what I understand, the corn planted in these lands are not going to be destined for local consumption alone. If this is true, Madagascar may benefit from this deal in the short term (e.g. job creation, reduced independence from the imported corn) since we are not using the land right now (I assume this is the case and that we are not taking fertile land away from people or cut forests to grow these corns and palm trees). The question is, what will happen when we will have the technology in the future and will need the land to grow our own food to meet our demands? By that time, these lands will be so used up and will not be fertile anymore. We also need to be aware that this is how some countries try to use irreplaceable resources from other countries to help sustain the consumption need o...

Thank you for the interesting reactions. It just shows how much we would stand for the benefit of this beloved country of ours. I would like to congratulate the reaction of our President; if it is got into effect. I think that he should need further assistance and voice out from Malagasy development agents. In fact, it seems that we are too quick to be lured by "FDI" Foreign Direct Investments. We should ask one very important question: why all of these FDI are rushing to get land in our country and mostly and only lands??? And the corollary questions behind it: what are the status of land market in those countries? That is to say how much money would it take them to acquire these vast tracks of land? Could they access and possess such vast track of land? How are the land taxation systems in those countries? What advantages are we offered to them that they would either find in their own countries of origin? How many of these so called FDI bring about positive changes to our...

Tenant farming was popular in rural America until the Dust Bowl years of the Depression, but the practice is making a comeback on an epic scale in much of Africa. This time, however, the "tenants" are not simply family farmers down on their luck and willing to work land they don't own; they're major international corporations and governments looking to compensate for shortages of arable land in their own countries by setting up massive industrial farms abroad. South Korea's Daewoo Logistics this week announced it had negotiated a 99-year lease on some 3.2 million acres of farmland on the dirt-poor tropical island of Madagascar, off southern Africa's Indian Ocean coast. That's nearly half of Madagascar's arable land, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization, and Daewoo plans to put about three quarters of it under corn. The remainder will be used to produce palm oil — a key commodity for the global biofuels market. A Daewoo manager...

Vatican City, Nov 18, 2008 / 05:54 pm (CNA).- The president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Renato Martino, has announced the recipients of the St. Matthew Foundation Awards for outstanding service in solidarity and social justice. One of the recipients this year is the Argentinean Fr. Pedro Opeka, who has worked with the poor in Madagascar since 1989. The St. Matthew Foundation was created in memory of the late Vietnamese Cardinal Francois Xavier Van Thuan, who died in 2002, and whose cause for beatification is underway. The foundation promotes initiatives that encourage the presence of the Church in society through study and the spreading of the Church’s social doctrine. Father Opeka’s life The AICA news agency reports that Argentinean writer Jesus Silveyra, in his book “A Trip to Hope,” written after visiting Madagascar, says the following about Father Opeka: He was ordained a priest in 1975 and returned to the African island to be pastor of the parish of ...

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea' S Daewoo Logistics will seedling corn in Madagascar, has company official said one Tuesday, with has length-term aim to replaces more than half the corn it currently imports from mostly the United States. The move to develop year area off Madagascar larger than Qatar follows has smaller deal in July to seedling corn in Indonesia and reflects the region' S latest push to lock in cropland abroad. Soaring food prices earlier this year and has shortage off farm Land At home has prompted several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Malaysia and South Korea to seek agricultural assets abroad to grow crops. Daewoo Logistics has secured rights in Madagascar to develop 1.3 hectares million. It plans to seedling 1 hectares million in the western leaves off the country with corn and 300,000 hectares in the east will Be dedicated to oil palm planting, said Shin Dong-hyun, who is in load off the project for the company. “We plan to start planting corn on...