M’sian palm oil board team to meet European Union MPs

KUALA LUMPUR: A Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) delegation is set to meet Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in Brussels next week to address issues pertinent to palm oil.

Malaysian Palm Oil Council CEO Dr Kalyana Sundram said they would also discuss several issues regarding the MEP’s Draft Report on legislative or nonlegislative issues, including environmental and health concerns.

“The Draft Report is a preliminary report generated by the so-called ‘experts’ employed by the European Union (EU) as some of the citations in the report are not 100% accurate or not generally pertinent to the scenario in Malaysia.

“So we feel obliged to intervene, as we can provide more precise and factual information on the Malaysian scenario,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the inaugural Palm Oil Sustainability EUMalaysia International Discourse yesterday.

Kalyana said the delegation would also address resolutions proposed by the 28nation block, including a plan to impose an EU-based certification for palm oil.

In April, the European parliament had voted to phase out unsustainable palm oil by 2020, and had endorsed the Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) plan for Europe-bound palm and other vegetable oil exports to ensure that they were produced in an environmentally sustainable way. – Bernama