MPOB EXPECTS MALAYSIA'S RBD EXPORTS TO INDIA TO RISE - Bernama | Malaysian Palm Oil Council Russia

MPOB EXPECTS MALAYSIA'S RBD EXPORTS TO INDIA TO RISE - Bernama
01-Jul-2021 01:24:13 PM

KUALA LUMPUR, July 1 (Bernama) -- Malaysia can now export more refined, bleached and deodorised (RBD) palm olein to India after the Indian government removed its 18-month long restriction on imports of refined palm oil products.

“This is good news for us and we hope that we can export more red palm oil (RPO) -- which has the same fatty acid composition as RBD palm oil -- into India now,” Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) director-general Dr Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir said to Bernama.

He noted that Malaysia exported an average of 550,000 tonnes of RPO to India from 2010-2018, adding that exports of the product had surged to 2.6 million tonnes in 2019.

This was thanks to the Malaysia-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement which gave Malaysian RPO a five per cent tax advantage over Indonesian RPO.

“Unfortunately, after the restriction was placed on Jan 8, 2020, we were only able to export 150,000 tonnes of RPO," he said.

According to a notification by the Indian Ministry of Commerce’s Directorate General of Foreign Trade on Wednesday, imports of RBD palm olein would be allowed without restrictions until year-end.

Earlier this week, the Indian government announced its move to reduce the import duty on crude palm oil (CPO) from 15 per cent to 10 per cent.

At the current price of between RM3,500 and RM3,800 per tonne, CPO export to the world's largest palm oil consumer is bound to increase further in the near future, said MPOB.

According to MPOB’s data, Malaysia’s palm oil export to India increased by more than eight folds to 1.29 million tonnes from January until May 2021, from 0.15 million tonnes recorded during the same period in 2020.