MPIC aims to resolve allegations by US CBP, EU within first six months of 2022 - Zuraida

PUTRAJAYA, April 22 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MPIC) aims to resolve the allegations by the United States Customs and Border Protection (US CBP) and the European Union (EU) relating to palm oil and forced labour within the first six months of this year.

Its Minister, Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin, said MPIC had requested to meet US CBP during this Ramadan month but had yet to get any response.

"There are two issues that need to be resolved within these six months, namely to meet the US CBP and EU. The meeting with the EU involved trial sessions and hearing on May 8-18 this year.

"The meetings with US CBP and EU is to answer to their allegations, besides giving explanations on the interpretation of their terms that could be different from us.

"When there are engagements, we can provide explanations for their understanding that the terms are different and this could reduce the baseless allegations (on palm oil including forced labour),” she told a media conference at her office here, today.

Commenting on the issue relating to Sime Darby Plantation Bhd (SDP) and major Italian confectionery firm, Ferrero, Zuraida stressed said this allegation was not made by Ferrero.

"This is not an allegation by Ferrero but made by the US CBP. This is not true as SDP does not supply palm-based oil to Ferrero,” she said. 

Earlier, SDP said Ferrero, which reportedly planned to stop sourcing palm oil from the company, is not its customer, neither are General Mills and The Hershey Company, which were mentioned in the Reuters news report published recently.

Meanwhile, MPIC announced that the commodity export value increased to RM31.61 billion in January-February 2022 compared with RM30.01 billion in the same period last year.

The total exports comprised palm at RM19.48 billion, rubber (RM6.79 billion), timber (RM4.13 billion), cocoa (RM1.15 billion), pepper (RM0.03 billion), and tobacco (RM0.03 billion).

"The improvement was also supported by constraints in the supply of sunflower seed oil from Ukraine and Russia and an increase in productivity which boosted the palm oil market," Zuraida said.

According to MPIC, the main contributing factor to the rise in palm price is the increase in production of 20 per cent (3.85 million tonnes in January-February 2022 from 3.2 million tonnes in January-February 2021).

MPIC will also be organising the Malaysia International Agricommodity Expo & Summit from July 26-28 at the Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC), to provide a platform to uplift the agricommodity sector.

It focuses on bringing all the industry players, producers, investors, and other stakeholders together to showcase their products, latest equipment, and technology under one roof.

-- BERNAMA