The corporation will help remove and trim roadside trees and it will process the waste wood in its lumber mill.
The company’s assistance, however, does not stop there as Hong Kyun Kim, president of P&A Inc., will also invest $2 million to help boost the local economy by using local manpower.
Early this year, Kim started his “Winners Project” at the 12,000-square-meter former garment factory in San Antonio just behind the Department of Labor.
“With this project Winners will be converted into a productive agriculture center which will have a plant factory, an agriculture produce processing facility, a lumber mill and warehouses with and without refrigeration,” Kim said.
Kim, who serves as Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s “pro-bono” special economic adviser, said one of the ultimate objectives of his project is the involvement of local farmers.
“We will assist the local farmers organization and make agriculture one of the main industries of the CNMI,” he said.
His plant factory will use hydroponics farming technology to produce value-added commodities for export.
The project, Kim said, will create about 30 new jobs in the first business year.
“We want to present a model for agriculture development so that agriculture will become the main industry of the island,” he added.
He said his project will serve as a model for the other abandoned garment factories on Saipan.
A long-time businessman in the CNMI, Kim said through hydroponics farming, agricultural products can comprise 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.
The agricultural products sold in 2007 in the CNMI amounted to $3.233 million only, representing less than 1 percent of the GDP, he added.
“We’re exploring the development of crops that can grow successfully through the hydroponics farming system, the first to be introduced in the CNMI,” he said.
In Japan, Kim said, about 50 plant factories grow lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, strawberries and other agricultural products.
Revitalization is important to the CNMI, he added.
Instead of allowing former garment factories and other buildings to remain empty and abandoned, they should be converted into productive facilities where fresh organic vegetables could be grown in a controlled environment, he said.
