BACK in 2019, at a time before the COVID-19 pandemic was even an issue, former Finance Minister Tun Daim Zainuddin made a claim to ‘make agriculture sexy’ through technology and turning the sector around in terms of profitability.
It was also that very year that Daim made an observation, stating that the future of the country’s agriculture sector does not lie in palm oil on its own. In fact, more research needed to be done in the cultivation of palm oil.
“Unless they do more research in the case of palm oil by turning it into let’s say, more food, then there is a future. Because at present in terms of land usage, the biggest is for palm oil plantations, followed by rubber,” he said during a press conference.
Meanwhile, the then-Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok came out with a statement saying that palm oil was ‘the best agri-commodity for Malaysia’, against comments from Daim – a coconut advocate – regarding palm oil’s ‘bleak future’ in the country, unless the Government can use it to address food security issues.
“My opinion is that both oil palm and coconut cultivation, which are highly appropriate for our climatic conditions, have their respective roles in our environment,” Kok argued. “When properly managed these could prove complementary to each other in many ways.”
She strengthened her statement by citing how the agri-commodity industry, which mainly comprised of palm oil and palm oil-based products, contributed 4.5% to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2018.
The industry also made up 52.8% (or RM67.5 bil) of export earnings to the country that year.
Surely enough, the agri-commodity sector recorded a total of RM169.2 bil in trade value for the first 11 months of 2020, a 10.6% increase against 2019’s RM153 bil in the same period.
According to Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Dr Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali, export earnings for agri-commodity products amounted to RM133.2 bil (or 15.1%) of the country’s total export earnings from January to November 2020.
“This was an increase of 13.6% over the RM117.2 bil recorded in the preceding year’s corresponding period.
“The improvement was due to an increase in the price of the main agri-commodity, the average price of crude palm oil, as well as the significant demand for rubber-based products,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Khairuddin stated that palm oil-based products are still the biggest contributor (48.6%) of total agri-commodity exports and managed to register a 4.8% growth in exports, amounting to RM64.8 bil.
Increased exports of rubber products
Apart from palm oil, the export value of rubber products, which contributed 32% to total agri-commodity product exports, jumped 50.5% to RM42.6 bil during the same period.
This was mainly driven by latex-based products especially rubber gloves that recorded a whopping 92.4% year-on-year (yoy) growth to RM30.6 bil from RM15.9 bil previously.
Meanwhile, the export value of rubber products, which contributed 32% to total agri-commodity product exports, jumped 50.5% to RM42.6 bil during the same period, driven by latex-based products especially rubber gloves that recorded a whopping 92.4% yoy growth to RM30.6 bil from RM15.9 bil previously.
On this, Khairuddin said that export volume of rubber gloves also showed an increase of 28% to 914,000 tonnes against 714,000 tonnes in the corresponding period in 2019.
As for other agri-commodity products, timber-based products contributed 14.9% to the exports of commodity goods, but their export value slipped 3.3% to RM19.8 bil.
Cocoa products exports declined 6% yoy to RM5.6 bil, similar with pepper products that experienced a 18.5% decrease to RM109 mil. – Jan 8, 2021
