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NEW ZEALAND :NEW WOOD PROCESSING PLANT IN GISBORNE
¡¾2002.07.30¡¿

NEW ZEALAND :NEW WOOD PROCESSING PLANT IN GISBORNE

Plans for a major new wood processing plant in Gisborne are going ahead, despite the impending sale of the region's port. Malaysian owned Hikurangi Forest Farms has told the Government it would be investing more than $100 million in the new plant. Economic Development Minister Jim Anderton complained that the council's intention to sell the port threw the project, which relies on the port being upgraded, into doubt. The council signed a heads of agreement with publicly owned Eastern Energy Community Trust to buy the port's assets and operations. Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon said the sale sent a strong statement to the Government, the timber industry and others looking at making significant financial investment in the area. Hikurangi Forest Farms had advised that based on what had been agreed by the Government, the Gisborne District Council and Port Gisborne, it would commit to establishing a wood processing facility. Mr Anderton hailed the decision as one of the Government's biggest single "jobs machine" successes and said the new plant would be New Zealand's biggest. The plant would process wood from Hikurangi's East Coast forests. According to him the new Hikurangi Forest Farms wood processing plant will be nearly double the size of New Zealand's current largest plant (Waipa in Rotorua). The new plant will be so large that it will process the equivalent of the volume of logs currently shipped out from the Gisborne Port per year and will be three times the size of the largest plant in the region.