Jakarta – Indonesian Ambassador to Belgium, Luxembourg and European Union (EU), Andri Hadi expressed regret over Belgium’s decision to issue the royal decree on product standards for transport fuels from renewable sources, which will ban the use of palm oil-based biofuel in the country since January 2022.

Ambassador Andri based his regret over the fact that the bill was designed with the background of strong accusation that palm oil is the cause of deforestation and attributed to the violation of human rights.

“The palm oil cannot be attributed to the deforestation and human rights violation,” Ambassador Andri said during his meeting with Eliane Tillieux, the chairperson of Belgium Federal Parliament on Tuesday, 04 May 2021.

Andri said that despite the fact that Indonesia is the world’s largest producer of palm oil, deforestation in the country has been sharply decreasing during the last few decades. “The Indonesian success in reducing deforestation is reflected by the global financing received by Indonesia through the mechanism of REDD+ (USD104 million from the Green Climate Fund, USD110 million the World Bank, and USD56 million from Norway).

Andri told Tillieux that strong cooperation between Indonesia and the EU has contributed to the achievement of Indonesia in reducing the deforestation rate. Until now, Indonesia has become the only partner country of EU that managed to issue the FLEGT licensing system, which enables Indonesia’s wood and wood-based products to enter the European market.

“Through the certification scheme, Indonesia’s wood-based products are made not only legal but also sustainable.  Indonesia hopes to increase its exports of wood and wood-based products to Europe,” Ambassador Andri asserted.

But despite the dissenting views on the palm oil, both Tillieux and Andri hope that it should not affect the bilateral relations between Indonesia and Belgium. (*)

Source: TEMPO.CO