Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand will retaliate if the EU\u2019s ongoing discrimination and attack on the palm oil industry becomes legislative, said Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong.<\/p>\n
On April 4 last year, the EU Parliament made a resolution to introduce a single certification scheme for palm oil entering the EU market and phase out the use of palm oil based biodiesel by the end of 2020.<\/p>\n
On Oct 23 last year, Industry, Research & Energy Committee (ITRE) endorsed the move and this was followed by support by the Parliament\u2019s Environmental Committee (ENVI) on Nov 28.<\/p>\n
Mah noted that global trade politics is akin to crop apartheid as the EU Parliament has erected trade barriers. This risks breach of the EU\u2019s World Trade Organisation (WTO) commitments and likely to jeopardise the Malaysia-EU Free Trade Agreement negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf these hate campaigns and discriminatory policy against palm oil were to go on, we can also retaliate. Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are collectively big purchasers of EU products,\u201d Mah told reporters today.<\/p>\n
The minister was officiating at the Reach and Remind Friends seminar and dialogue organised by Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) here today.<\/p>\n
Also present were Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry’s secretary general Datuk K. Yogeeswaran, Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) chairman Datuk Ahmad Hamzah, MPOB director general Datuk Dr Ahmad Kushairi Din and Malaysian Palm Oil Council chairman Datuk Lee Yeow Chor.<\/p>\n
For the past year, Mah said he had met and spoken with many EU ambassadors here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope the EU will do by right and stop discriminating against the global palm oil industry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mah reiterated that oil palm planters across Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand deserve equal opportunities to trade and the EU should stop discriminating palm oil in favour its own rapeseed and sunflower sector.<\/p>\n
He explained Malaysia\u2019s 650,000 small farmers\u2019 daily income and livelihoods are stunted by trade barriers put up by developed nations under the guise of environmental protection.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is oil palm cultivation demonised when it is proven to be the most sustainable oil crop when compared to rapeseed and sunflower grown in the EU?<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are our oil palm planters being discriminated? What we want are equal opportunities to trade our palm oil. Is that too much to ask?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
When asked to estimate Malaysia\u2019s 2017 palm oil exports, Mah said it is expected to surpass RM75 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, our planters are hopeful of a higher target of RM80 billion as production is forecast to surpass 20 million tonnes while prices firm up on strong global demand,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand will retaliate if the EU\u2019s ongoing discrimination and attack on the palm oil industry becomes legislative, said Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong. On April 4 last year, the EU Parliament made a resolution to introduce a single certification scheme for palm oil entering the EU market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[12887],"supplier":[4514,1917,2863,85,90],"class_list":["post-49152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-palmoil","supplier-european-parliament","supplier-european-patent-office-epo","supplier-malaysian-palm-oil-board-mpob","supplier-malaysian-palm-oil-council-mpoc","supplier-world-trade-organization-wto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49152"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=49152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}