THE Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry (MPIC) has assured the Malaysian Biodiesel Association (MBA) that the ministry is all ears to the group’s proposal that Malaysia should retain its existing biodiesel mandate.
It was recently reported that MBA had highlighted why Malaysia should not reduce or stop its biodiesel mandate as the biodiesel industry hardly consumes one million tonnes of palm oil annually as opposed to over 40 million tonnes used globally.
In expressing its views, MBA mentioned that any knee-jerk reaction to banning biofuels derived from vegetable oils would cause havoc in the global vegetable oil market.
According to MPIC, it is crucial to note that MBA’s concerns came at a “chaotic moment” when the association was reacting to a viewpoint by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) on April 25 that both palm oil exporting and importing countries should set their priorities right by “temporarily reconsidering food versus fuel priorities”.
“Recall that there was an air of desperation back then – Malaysia’s neighbour and the world’s largest palm oil exporter, Indonesia, was on the verge of putting to a halt its shipments of refined, bleached and deodorised (RBD) palm olein,” said its minister Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin.
“This prompted MPOB’s director-general Datuk Dr Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir – an all-around palm oil expert – to convey such views against the backdrop of a choke in global edible oil supplies amid both adverse weather conditions and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”
Needless to say, disruptions from the geopolitical tension have exacerbated price rises in food commodities which were already running at 10-year highs in the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) index.
“This threatened not only a jump in global malnourishment but a spike in global inflation across both developed, developing and under-developed economies,” Zuraida added.
“True enough Indonesia declared an export ban on April 28 on cooking oil and its raw materials – which lasted until May 23 – in the quest to make cooking oil available at affordable prices for its citizens.”
But now that normalcy has resumed and calmer heads have prevailed, MPIC stressed that it is all status quo on Malaysia’s biodiesel mandate front.
“On the same note, MPIC wants to take the opportunity to reiterate that Malaysia’s National Biofuels Policy (NBP), which was rolled out in March 2006, remains committed to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rate in line with the country’s aspiration towards achieving the GHG emissions reduction target of 45% of GDP by 2030; to expand the use of downstream palm oil products and become an initiative to increase the income of oil palm smallholders through palm oil market price control mechanisms; and to help reduce the country’s dependence on fossil fuels as one of the energy security initiatives,” Zuraida noted.
“To MBA, we thank them for their invaluable feedback on our big role and the effect of the biofuel policy towards conserving nature for younger generation Malaysians.” – June 2, 2022
