(De Ware Tijd) PARAMARIBO – The giant timber investor Sino-Forest, which has between 150,000 and 300,000 hectares of concessions in Suriname via its subsidiary Greenheart Resources Holding (GRH), is losing more and more of its value on the international market.
This is based on suspicion of fraud by the company. While an independent internal investigation is ongoing, general director Allen Chan resigned on Friday. He stepped down after shares of the company lost 72% of their value on the Canadian stock exchange within a day. U.S. business news organization Bloomberg reported this on its website yesterday. Sino-Forest’s internal investigation is carried out after reputable market watchdog Muddy Waters issued a report in June accusing the Chinese-Canadian multinational of fraud.
The timber company allegedly exaggerated the extent of its concession areas in Suriname and the value of the commercially exploitable timber on the concessions in order to gain millions in investment capital. When asked for comment, Parliamentarian Rabin Parmessar, who is also chairman of the permanent committee for Natural Resources, says that personally, he believes that measures should be taken against concession holders who let other local or foreign investors manage the concession without the government’s knowledge, as was done in the case of GRH and Sino-Forest.
