“I expect that it would not be long before they (Saudi Aramco) begin channelling their funds for the RAPID project.”
DATUK SERI ABDUL RAHMAN DAHLAN, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department
NUSA DUA (Bali): Malaysia and Indonesia will have the right to file an official complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) if the European Commission adopts an European Parliament resolution on palm oil and deforestation as its official policy.
Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong said the government would be compelled to respond appropriately should the European Union continue its discriminatory stance to exclude palm biofuel from EU’s Renewable Energy Directive.
Last week, the Environment Committee (ENVI) in the EU Parliament voted to exclude all palm biofuels from the EU renewable energy market.
If the directive was adopted on the legislative level, Mah said palm oil would be excluded from the Renewable Energy Directive while other vegetable oils would remain included.
Mah is currently leading the Malaysian Delegation to co-chair the inaugural Ministerial Meeting of Palm Oil Producing Countries in Indonesia.
Organised by the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries and chaired by Indonesia, there were representatives from other oil palm producing countries such as Colombia, Guate-mala, Papua New Guinea and Thailand.
“This meeting is historic and the first of its kind. All major oil palm producing countries are officially addressing the unprecedented challenges the industry is facing,” he said.
Mah expressed Malaysia’s concerns regarding the growing anti-palm oil campaign in the EU Parliament, describing attempts by the Members of European Parliament in associating palm oil with rainforest deforestation as unjust and discriminatory. “The EU is discriminating against palm oil as the ENVI Committee clearly states that competitor oilseed crops will still be allowed to continue operating under the Renewable Energy Directive while palm biofuel would be excluded,” he said.
Mah reiterated that allegations made by Members of the European Parliament on the ENVI Committee relating to oil palm’s environmental impacts were wrong and misleading.
This, he said, was because Malaysia’s forest protection was vastly superior to that of almost every EU member state. Malaysia had one of the most advanced forest protection regimes in the world, as recognised by the United Nations and the World Bank, he said.