Singapore, 31 December 2020 – Dear Colleagues, It has been a couple of months since my last message to you in June 2020, and it has now come to the end of the year. 2020 will forever be remembered as the year the world came to a standstill.
What a challenging year it has been! I am deeply aware that many of you are experiencing difficult times. We at Musim Mas also had to reinvent ourselves and come up with new ways to work safely and effectively. From the tens of thousands of workers in our plantations and manufacturing sites, to our office colleagues in Europe and Americas, we all have had to work under tougher conditions to deliver quality work, often in the midst of high infection rates in our countries.
This is exemplified by the outstanding performance in our plants in Europe and also in KIM II in Indonesia. These plants have not only been able to maintain production levels, but in fact increased them significantly, despite all the challenges thrown their way. Your combined efforts will contribute to the fight against Covid-19 as we continue to ramp up production capacities of the essential oleochemicals the world needs for the production of sanitisers and other cleansing and disinfectant products.
Closer to home, we are aware of the many workers in remote locations in Indonesia who have not been able to go home since early 2020 as a result of lockdowns. Extra efforts have been taken to make their lives more comfortable in these locations, including our staffs working relentlessly to beef up the daily supplies at our mini markets, plantation bakery centres making cakes and sweets to lift up spirits. Even the fishes reared in the Aeroflow ponds in our mills, which at normal times were meant to indicate the excellent water quality in the ponds, were often added on the dinner table for the staffs. We are touched to learn of teachers in the plantation schools going the extra mile to deliver homework to their students staying, and studying, at home. To also hear of our staff in Medan braving to come to the office to clear their work, simply because the poor Internet connection at home would make working from home much more difficult.
I am truly and deeply appreciative of your collective efforts. It is because of your dedication, passion and unrelenting drive to overcome the obstacles, that we have so far been able to safely navigate through these tough times and come out even stronger than before! However, the end of the pandemic is nowhere near, and tides can quickly turn. As Martin Luther King aptly says, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we MUST NEVER lose infinite hope.” We must remain vigilant and be regularly abreast of market and pandemic conditions.
Even in these difficult times, we at Musim Mas did not forget to take care of our communities, while also continuing to push the boundaries of our sustainability objectives as well. We are proud to be awarded 8 out of the 9 Proper Hijau Certificates in 2020 slated for the palm oil industry by the Ministry of Environment & Forestry in Indonesia- a most outstanding achievement! Musim Mas has also been nominated for the President of Singapore’s Volunteerism & Philanthropy Awards 2020 Special Edition, in recognition of our efforts to give back to the community.
As 2021 approaches, we will meet it with the same vigour and dynamism displayed throughout 2020. We will learn from our mistakes and our successes. We will adopt, in larger scale, technologies and work models that have proven successful during the pandemic. We will also foster enhanced cross border co-operation between our companies to make ourselves even more efficient and more competitive than our peers in the delivery of our products and services to our clients globally.
I sincerely thank you for all you have done this year. May you all stay safe, keep healthy, and have a better New Year ahead!
Sincerely yours,
Executive Chairman & CEO
