Kota Kinabalu: Sabah lawyer cum political and social activist Rahimah Majid has been appointed the new Chairman of Cocoa Board Malaysia (LKM) Sabah branch, effective Oct 1, 2021.
She is the first woman to have been appointed to the post since LKM was established in 1988.
Rahimah, who is known for championing and defending the underprivileged natives of Sabah, thanked the Perikatan Nasional (PN) Government and Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin for entrusting her with such an important task of overseeing the development of the cocoa industry.
“I shall do my best to help boost the growth of the cocoa industry in Malaysia. I sincerely believe that with the support, guidance and close cooperation of my colleagues in the Malaysian Cocoa Board, we could achieve this together,” she said in a statement.
Rahimah, who is also a director of the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (Mida), recognised that with the ever-increasing global demand for cocoa, there’s a promising future ahead for Malaysia’s well-established cocoa plantation sector.
She noted that currently, the cocoa cultivation area in Malaysia stood at 5,898 hectares and out of this, 3,309 hectares are in Sabah, followed by 1,323 hectares in Sarawak and 1,266 hectares in Peninsular Malaysia.
“I believe, given the right directions, proper planning and good support from both the federal and state governments, we can bring our cocoa plantation sector to a greater height,” she said.
