PUTRAJAYA: The Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry has set a timeline for the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification mandatory compliance with the aim of uplifting the industry to the global standard.
Its Minister, Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong said the compliance would be implemented in stages with plantation players, who were already certified with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), needed to comply with the MSPO certification by December 31, 2018.
Those without RSPO certification would need to comply by June 30, 2019, while smallholders by December 31, 2019.
“We will be getting the financial incentives ready by June this year to help the industry certification.
The details are being work out,” he told a media conference after holding a discussion with six members of the European Parliament here.
The implementation of the MSPO scheme, which started on Jan 1, 2015, is currently on a voluntary basis.
To date, MSPO-certified areas, comprising estates and smallholders, cover 222,778 hectares of the total 5.737 million hectares planted.
As at December 2016, six per cent of the estate planted hectarage was MSPO-certified and only 0.3 per cent of smallholder hectarage was MSPO-certified.
The move to make the compliance mandatory is not to penalise the stakeholders, instead it is aimed at upgrading the whole industry, he said, adding that the mandatory compliance was also a significant step towards branding local palm oil as sustainably produced and safe.
“This decision is not easy.
Other countries especially in Europe want us to do RSPO.
I think it is impossible for the smallholders to do so.
“We must have our own sustainable palm oil standard because we are a producing country,” he added.
Meanwhile, issues concerning the Malaysian palm oil industry were raised by the members of the European Parliament in their meeting with Mah and the ministry officials.
The members of parliaments were on a three-day visit to Malaysia to learn more about the plantation industry.
Mah said the visit would help Malaysia prepare measures to counter a campaign against palm oil in Europe as efforts to introduce an anti-palm oil legislation in the European Parliament were in the offing.
The European Union is the second largest market for Malaysian palm oil.
In 2016, Malaysia’s exports of palm oil and palm-based products to the EU increased 4.14 per cent to RM10.30 billion from RM9.89 billion in 2015. — Bernama