JAKARTA – Maritime and Investment Coordinating Minister (Menko Marves) Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said that the Indonesian government will reorient palm oil exports from Europe to Africa due to the implementation of European Union (EU) Deforestation-Free Regulations (EUDR).

During a press conference on increasing palm oil governance in Jakarta, Minister Luhut said that they had informed it to the EU parliament. “We’ve informed the EU parliament that we’re thinking on diverting our palm oil exports of 3.3 million tons to EU gradually to Africa, so that there will be no more quarrels with us,” Luhut said on Friday, 23 June 2023.

Previously, the EU has adopted the EU Deforestation – Free Regulation (EUDR), which obliges all exporters to ensure that the products they sell in Europe are not the cause of deforestation. If found violating the regulation, the exporters and importers can be fined up to 4.0 percent from their income derived in EU.

Economic Coordinating Minister Airlangga Hartarto said that the implementation of the EUDR will incur losses to Indonesia. Even he said that the EUDR tends to cause ecological discrimination.

“During our recent visit to EU, we saw that the commodities of palm oil, coffee, cocoa, beef, rubber, woods and other agricultural and forestry products are being discriminated through the implementation of the EUDR,” said Minister Airlangga.

He said that the EUDR has also applied the scheme of benchmarking, which classifies countries into three types, namely countries of low risk, countries of medium risk and countries of high risk in terms of causing deforestations. (*)

Source: sawitku.id