Sinar Mas Group
Sinar Mas Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Indonesia and was founded in 1962 by Mr Eka Tjipta Wijaya, the prominent Chinese entrepreneur. The group has many subsidiaries but its flagship company is the Asia Pulp & Paper Co., Ltd. (APP).
The group’s main businesses are: pulp and paper, agribusiness, palm oil, property and financial services. Sinar Mas is one of the world’s ten biggest paper making enterprises and is the biggest producer of palm oil in Indonesia.
It set up a subsidiary in India in the 1990’s, but sold it to Ballarpur Industries in 2001.
APP in China 
After chopping down a truly staggering number of trees over a span of 30 years, APP now has overall assets of more than US$10 billion, and an annual production and processing capacity of more than 10 million tonnes of paper.
After laying bare much of the forest cover in southeast Asia, Sinar Mas started focussing its attention on investments in China’s Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta region, building large scale pulp and paper-making enterprises including the cultivation of fast-growing paper plantations. Eucalyptus has apparently been a big favourite with Sinar Mas.
APP has been convicted of illegal logging in Cambodia, Yunnan Province and other provinces of China, as well as the illegal felling of over 200 Km2 of forest in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, home of the endangered Sumatra Tiger.
At present, APP owns 17 pulp and paper companies and more than 20 forestry centers in China where it has 20,000 full-time employees.
Palm Oil
Most of the company’s palm oil is exported, but much of it remains in Indonesia where it is sold through a subsidiary called PT Smart Tbk, itself one of the largest, publicly-listed, integrated palm-based consumer companies in Indonesia.
Founded by Sinar Mas in 1962, Smart now has palm plantations with total coverage of about 125,000 hectares. Smart also operates 12 CPO mills, 2 kernel crushing plants and 2 refineries; and it distributes, markets and exports consumer palm-based products such as cooking oil, margarine and shortening.
What Sinar Mas Doesn’t Say
According to Greenpeace Sinar Mas is involved with deforestation all over Indonesia, including in Kalimantan and Papua, and has aggressive expansion plans for the future. Sinar Mas is a key member of the now discredited Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
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