Malaysia aims to increase palm oil export to Pakistan

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia intends to increase the palm oil export to Pakistan to 60 percent from the current 22 percent after Pakistan showed interest to import more palm oil from the country as India reduced imports of the commodity, The Malaysian Reserve reported. 

Malaysia Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok said her country’s palm oil market share in Pakistan currently stands at 22 percent only as it is sold at a higher price due to export duty, among other reasons. “There is room for improvement, but they are also asking for crude palm oil (CPO) with a lower price, so there needs to be detailed discussions between both the countries.

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“Hopefully from 22 percent, we can increase it to 50 percent or 60 percent. That would be a great improvement,” she said in Putrajaya last Friday. She added that there is also a potential to increase bilateral trade between Malaysia and Pakistan as Pakistan’s population of more than 200 million could serve as a potential destination for the increased use of Malaysian’s palm oil. “Through bilateral trade, a lot of issues can be ironed out. When I went to Karachi, there was a request that there should be more flights from Pakistan to Malaysia, especially from Karachi.

“If you check from the embassy, there is also an increase of tourists applying for visas to come to Malaysia so there is a potential increase of bilateral trade between two countries,” she added. Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently pledged to import more palm oil from Malaysia during his bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

This is following India’s threat to restrict imports of refined palm oil from Malaysia amid a diplomatic row over Kashmir. India imposed a restriction on refined palm oil imports last month and ceased all palm oil purchases from the country after Dr Mahathir’s criticism on India’s policy towards Kashmir.

Malaysia is the second-largest producer of palm oil after Indonesia and has been its biggest market for the past five years.