JAKARTA – The Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) Chairman Eddy Martono said that the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia have asked European Union (EU) to delay the implementation of its European Union Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR) until 2026, instead of the initial schedule of January 2025.
Eddy Martono said that the proposal had been presented to the EU during the second meeting of Ad Hoc Joint Task Force (JTF) on EUDR, which was conducted on 02 February 2024 in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
“Basically, the palm oil industry players support the government’s policy to ask for the EUDR delay until 2026,” Eddy said during a press conference on the performance of palm oil industry in 2023 and its prospects for 2024 in Jakarta on Tuesday (27/02/2024.
Besides asking for the delay, the governments of Indonesia and Malaysia will also invite the EU to visit the two Southeast Asian countries to see the impacts of the EUDR to oil palm smallholders.
According to Eddy, the reasons behind the proposal to delay are mainly concerned with the fact that smallholders in Indonesia and Malaysia are not yet ready for the EUDR application. Implementing it now will only threaten the continuity of smallholders’ plantation businesses.
Another reason is Indonesia’s seeking to avoid the benchmarking as a country with a high risk. Based on the EUDR, EU will apply the benchmarking system for exporting countries based on three levels of deforestation risks, namely high risk, medium risk and low risk. The EUDR standard categorizes Indonesia as a country of high risk in deforestation. It will certainly harm Indonesia’s export commodities such as palm oil.
“The benchmarking does not only cause trouble to palm oil, but also to other export commodities of Indonesia, such as cocoa, coffee, soybean, beef, woods, rubber, paper, and leather,” said Eddy Martono during the press conference, which also marked the 43rd anniversary of GAPKI as an organization of oil palm producers. (*)
Source: sawitku.id
