Malaysia, Turkey to Cooperate in Palm Oil

Istanbul, Turkey | August 07, 2009 by D-8 Secretariat

The usage of palm oil is still relatively limited to edible items, and has not yet effectively explored for the usage in bio-diesel purposes

Malaysia has made an offer to the Turkish government to refine crude palm oil in Turkey and market it to neighboring countries. The idea came up at the meeting between Turkish Agricultural Minister Mehdi Eker and Malaysia’s Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok in İstanbul on Tuesday.

Dompok noted that Malaysia was one of the leading palm oil producers in the world, adding that crude palm oil was produced on nearly one-third of Malaysia’s total arable land and that its palm oil was mostly shipped to China, India and Pakistan for refining. “We usually sell crude palm oil to such countries as China, India and Pakistan. Palm oil is refined in these countries and sold to neighboring countries. In order to balance trade between Turkey and Malaysia, we can do the same,” Dompok said. The minister also suggested Turkey and Malaysia could cooperate on lumber and furniture production.

Eker said the Turkish government had offered to sign a memorandum of understanding with Malaysia to boost agricultural cooperation. However, he said Turkey was still awaiting a response since the Malaysian government needs the approval of three separate ministries responsible for agriculture.

D-8 member countries, Indonesia and Malaysia, are world’s highest producers of palm oil, supplying up around 90% of total world production. However, the usage of palm oil is still relatively limited to edible items, and has not yet effectively explored for the usage in bio-diesel purposes. The challenge between food and energy needs is yet the biggest hurdle to be solved. Indonesia is on a continous research to explore the possibilities to use janthropa to cover this need, but the result has not been reached yet. D-8 Director, Amb. Kia Tabatabaee said that D-8 Organization is putting all its effort to support the development of this sectors, and implied that it can also learn from other countries to seek further potentials in this promising fields.

Source: TodaysZaman, D-8 Media.

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