PUTRAJAYA: The government has urged Malaysian palm oil companies to immediately stop importing crude palm oil from abroad and use local palm oil instead.
Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok said Malaysia’s palm oil stocks in November had risen 10.45 per cent to 3.01 million tonnes from 2.72 million tonnes in October.
“I urge palm oil companies to use local palm oil as part of efforts to help local smallholders who are suffering because of Malaysia’s rather high palm oil stocks.
“We also find that some of our companies are importing palm oil from neighbouring countries. In this critical period, we want to urge them to stop importing palm oil to be processed at their refineries but instead use local palm oil,” she told reporters when met at the launch of the B10 biodiesel programme for the transportation sector at Dataran Putra yesterday.
Kok was commenting on the Malaysian Palm Oil Board’s (MPOB) report on the performance of the Malaysian palm oil industry for November 2018 released yesterday which showed higher palm oil inventories.
She said her ministry is not laying down a definite time frame for the companies to stop importing palm oil. — Bernama