Senator Alan Ling described the formulation of Delegated Act by the European Commission as a calculated political act intending to remove Malaysia’s pal,m oil exports from the European Union marketplace and not so much as an environmental regulation.
“Such a harsh trade barrier is harming the livelihood of 650,000 small farmers in our country, and despite the evidence of the sustainability of Malaysian Palm Oil as we are embarking o country-wide exercise in the certification process, the European Union chose to undermine us .”
Ling argued the basis that palm oil causes deforestation is totally baseless because the actual fact is we still have more than 53% forest cover and our wildlife are protected.
Alan Ling who is also Pakatan Harapan (PH) Sarawak secretary expressed his disappointment of the move by EU and said that the government under the leadership of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad will act aggressively against the ban in the interest of pal oil industry which contributed about 5% of export revenue to the GDP of Malaysia.
“The Ministry of Primary Industries and MPOB are fully with the Prime Minister on his firm stance to retaliate if need arises, simply because this concers the income of the poor and down trodden in many interior area of Malaysia as palm oil is an important or only Source of income for the myriad of small farmers.”
On issue regarding MSPO, he commented that all oil palm planters must be certified or else their fresh fruit bunches will not admitted even by the local refineries once the refineries are certified, and moving towards the Government is looking at imposing condition that only MSPO certified Oil can be exported out of the country as part of our effort to counter EU’s unfair restrictions and social movement to ban palm oil from Malaysia.
Ling emphasized that the country palm oil industry has always be proactive in promoting palm oil and the latest is to have Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) has mandated for the whole Malaysian Palm Oil industry by 31 December, 2019 therefore all producers in Malaysia including Small farmers will need to meet a broad range of standards that provide an assurance of sustainability and serve as benchmark that the palm oil from Malaysia is responsibly produced with due regards to environment and social considerations.
“The government has allocated fund to assist small farmers to be MSPO certified and also have TUNAS officers (Tunjuk Ajar dan Nasihat Sawit) under MPOB to monitor and guide them in this massive exercise of which the cooperation of all industry players are needed.”
Ling also disclosed that those with MSPO issues can contact MSPO outreach executive in Sarawak Paren Nyawi at 016-259-2067 for advise.
