The Palm Oil Expected to Increase by Next Year

KUCHING : Teresa Kok expects the prices of palm oi to go up next year.

The Ministry of Primary Industries said the prices of palm oil are now at the lowest period and her projection was also based on the expected increase in demand of palm oil by the east Asian countries like China.

Normally,festive seasons will boost up the demand of edible oil and the northern countries like China, Japan or EU will import less oil during this period.

Furthermore, she believed that the drop in palm oil prices was a worldwide problem and even other oil related crops including soya beans are facing the same problem, whereby there is an excess of production this year.

She added that India is the top importer of Malaysian palm oil followed by the Europian Union, which is ranked number two, and China as the third top importer.

Kok said at the moment they are exploring a lot of new markets and its include Phillipines, the Northern African countries and the middle-eastern countries. They are working very hard to explore new markets.

Kok said based on the free trade agreement between India and Malaysia, India is supposed to lower the import tax for Malaysian palm oil, which may boost the importation of the commodity into the country.

She said her Ministry is also planning to to do more palm oil promotion activities in India next year and thus Malaysia can look forward to India to buy more of its palm oil. -Borneo Post