NUSA DUA – Indonesia and Malaysia have reaffirmed their joint commitment to advocate the council of palm oil producing countries (CPOPC) to continually implement the principles of palm oil sustainability. Both countries agreed that such effort will be pursued through, among others, the momentum of Indonesia’s presidency of G20 to strengthen the collaboration of all palm oil stakeholders.
“To support the implementation of the new and renewable energy policy, Indonesia and Malaysia have also agreed to consider scaling up the mandatory biodiesel program to biofuel 35 percent (B35) for Indonesia and B20 for Malaysia. The program is expected to increase domestic consumption of palm oil,” Indonesia’s Economic Coordinating Minister Airlangga Hartarto said during the 10th ministerial meeting of the CPOPC in Nusa Dua, Bali, recently.
During the meeting, all observer countries’ representatives cited the potential contribution of palm oil in driving economic growth and raising the public welfare of smallholders. Other participants also expressed the hope for CPOPC to support efforts of tackling various challenges in developing the palm oil sector, including the global market dynamics, price fluctuations, and requirements to comply with the sustainability standard.
During a press conference, both Minister Airlangga and Malaysia’s Plantation and Commodities Minister YM Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin responded to a question on how CPOPC should deal with the conflict between Russia and Ukraine that has triggered the global crisis of food and energy. “Now, it’s right time for us to take it as our opportunity to promote palm oil products and convince the global communities on the benefits of palm oil,” both ministers stated.
Minister Airlangga also stated that palm oil producing countries should take advantage from the current global condition, which is seeing rising demand for vegetable oils due to supply shortage as a result of the war between Russia and Ukraine, by continually promoting the sustainability of palm oil at the global market.
”The palm oil has a strategic role as part of solutions to tackle the current global crisis of food and energy. We need to strengthen our commitment for the palm oil sustainability and increase our efforts of promoting it at the global market. We can do it by, among others, pursuing constructive dialog with other producing countries and consuming countries, increasing the capacity and investments for the oil palm smallholders,” he said during the CPOPC ministerial meeting.
He said that to strengthen the global collaboration, the CPOPC meeting had also discussed a plan to hold the G20 Sustainable Vegetable Oil Summit in November 2022. “This vegetable oil summit is aimed to strengthen the synergy among all stakeholders in dealing with various challenges of the global supply chain of vegetable oils,” he said. (*)
Source: sindonews.com/investor.id
