Indonesia to lift palm oil export ban from Monday

President says domestic supply and price of cooking oil have improved

JAKARTA: Indonesia will lift its ban on palm oil exports next week, President Joko Widodo said yesterday, relieving pressure on the global vegetable oil market after prices spiked because of the suspension and the war in Ukraine.

The country issued the ban last month to secure supplies of the commodity, used in a range of goods from chocolate spreads to cosmetics, in the face of a domestic shortage.

“Based on the supply ... of cooking oil and considering there are 17 million people in the palm oil industry – farmers and other supporting workers – I decided that cooking oil exports will reopen on Monday, May 23,” Widodo told an online briefing.

“The government will still be monitoring everything strictly to ensure the demand will be met with affordable prices,” he said.

Authorities had rigorously enforced the export ban, with the Indonesian navy seizing a tanker carrying palm oil out of the country in violation of the order earlier this month.

After the ban came into force, Widodo said supplying the country’s 270 million people was the “highest priority” of his government.

But Jakarta came under pressure for further saddling prices that were already skyrocketing after Russia’s invasion of agricultural powerhouse Ukraine.

Palm oil producers staged protests last week in the centre of Jakarta and several towns in Indonesia complaining that the prices for palm oil fruits had dropped dramatically.

Widodo said he was reversing the suspension because the domestic supply and price of cooking oil had improved since the ban came into effect on April 28.

Domestic supplies of cooking oil also tripled after the ban from 64,500 tonnes per month to 211,000 tonnes, he said.

Industry figures hailed the decision to resume exports.

Eddy Martono, secretary general of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association, said the organisation “is very grateful to the government, especially to the president” for lifting the ban.

Oil Palm Farmers Association chairman Gulat Manurung thanked Widodo and said oil palm farmers would repay his decision by boosting domestic supplies.