Ministry targets 10 per cent increase in local palm oil use

0

Kok speaks at a COSS event. According to Kok, local use of palm oil products currently stood at 20 per cent while about 80 per cent was for export markets. — Bernama photo

KUALA LUMPUR: The Primary Industries Ministry targets a 10 per cent increase in the use of palm oil and its products through the ‘Sayangi Sawitku’ campaign.

Its minister Teresa Kok Suh Sim said local use of palm oil products currently stood at 20 per cent while about 80 per cent was for export markets.

“We urge manufacturers of all downstream palm oil products to placed the ‘Sayangi Sawitku’ campaign label on their products to educate the consumers that (the products) are made of palm oil,” she said during a questions and answers session with companies under the Cooking Oil Stabilisation Scheme (COSS) here, yesterday.

Earlier in her speech, Kok said since the pre-launch of national level ‘Sayangi Sawitku’ campaign, various activities and programmes had been carried out with local people, students from the different schools, colleges and universities.

“The objective of this campaign is to cultivate the spirit of love and pride towards Malaysian palm oil as well as the appreciations of the commodity’s contribution towards the economy,” she added.

Kok said the mandatory implementation of SCCS-Supply Chain Certification Standard for palm oil processing facilities involved with COSS was June 30, 2019.

“For palm oil processing facilities which are not involved with COSS, they need to get the SCCS certification before December 31, 2019,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the government had allocated RM600 million this year to subsidise cooking oil.

“The allocation involved 60,000 metric tonnes or 3.69 per cent of the subsidise cooking oil, involving 280 cooking oil packagers under the COSS scheme nationwide.”

“The government will give them 60 sen subsidy for every one kilogramme of RM2.50 cooking oil packet,” she said. — Bernama