PUTRAJAYA: THE Malaysian palm oil industry has overcome various challenges in its 100-year history, more so its tireless fight against smear campaigns targeting the palm oil industry, said Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong.
“Back in the days, they attacked us by saying that palm oil was a tropical oil and its plantations were destroying the environment.
“Then they started campaigns saying that palm oil contained saturated fat which is bad for health and that it is carcinogenic. We have been countering these false claims for very long,” he said during an interview with NST Business recently.
The interview was held in conjunction with the 100th year anniversary of Malaysia’s palm oil industry.
Mah said he was delighted that some of these claims were proven wrong by an affiliate of the British Medical Journal last month, which counters false claims made against saturated fats.
“According to British Journal of Sports Medicine, there is no association that can be made between consumption of saturated fats and i) all-cause mortality, ii) coronary heart disease (CHD), iii) CHD mortality, iv) ischaemic stroke, or v) type-2 diabetes in healthy adults; citing a landmark meta-analysis of observational studies and systematic review on the subject matter.
This finding shows that saturated fats are not unhealthy and lends support to the current advice of consuming vegetable oils with zero trans fats such as palm oil to maintain a good health."
Mah said research by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board had shown that palm oil is rich with antioxidants such as vitamin E tocotrienols, which can help prevent cancer.
“It is the other way around. We have to work really hard to combat these false claims,” he said.
It was also reported in February that the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) had falsely linked palm oil consumption to cancer.
EFSA had suggested that palm oil was more carcinogenic than other vegetable oils, as glycidyl esters (GE) and 3-monochloropropanediol (3-MCPD) elements found in it were genotoxic and carcinogenic.
“Those are distortion of facts. The GE and 3-MCPD elements are present in all vegetable oils including olive oil, (and) are not cancerous,” he said.
Recently, Malaysia and Indonesia decided to press on the European Union (EU) to reject the discriminatory terms passed in a European Parliament on a new palm oil resolution that will hurt tens of millions of tropical farmers’ livelihood.
The EU approved the discriminating resolution and ignored government-driven certification schemes, namely the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil and the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil.
Earlier this year, Mah and Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution said the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) views that environmental issues should not be used as a tool for discrimination and a disguised restriction to trade.
They said the proposed measures under the resolution go against international trade obligations.
Mah said he will be going to Europe with Darmin to press against the resolution.
“We have also decided to invite other countries like Thailand, Colombo, Ivory Coast and Papua New Guinea to join the CPOPC to strengthen collaboration in protecting one common interest — to protect the palm oil industry.
“We need to work together, especially in the area of marketing and combating false claims,” he said.
He said the bid against the EU resolution was important as Malaysia accounted for 29.4 per cent of EU’s total palm oil imports last year. It was the largest market for Malaysian palm oil and palm-based products with imports valued at RM9.9 billion.
Mah said besides that, the government was serious about environmental issues, particularly in conserving the orangutan, which is classified as endangered species.
“Everywhere I go, a lot of Europeans and Americans are saying that Malaysian palm oil industry is killing orangutan due to the expansion of cultivated areas, and I would like to reiterate that this is not true.
“We are working hard to conserve the orangutan. The attacks are saying that by 2010, there would be no more orangutan in Malaysia — extinct because of the palm oil industry.
“In fact, today, we have 11,200 orangutan in Sabah and 2,500 orangutan in Sarawak. We are helping to preserve orangutan,” he said.
In 2012, the Malaysian Palm Oil Council mooted the Malaysian Palm Oil Wildlife Conservation Fund with an initial funding of RM20 million of which RM10 million was a grant from the Malaysian government and the balance RM10 million was provided by the palm oil industry.
The fund is administered by MPOC, which also has the overall responsibility to manage the various conservation projects funded through MPOWCF.
Meanwhile, Mah said he was disappointed when the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) pact was shelved as the agreement was poised to offer a big potential for palm oil exports to the United States and TPP member nations.
He said since the agreement was now shelved, the ministry needed to work harder on new markets and was targeting more new export countries including Iran, India and the Philippines.
“We want to diversify and work harder on new markets and this is why we have set up offices in Iran and India. We think the Philippines is another huge potential for us, looking at its huge demand for palm oil and palm-based products,” he said.
Last year, Malaysia exported RM67.58 billion in palm oil and palm-based products.
Mah was previously reported as saying that he is confident that the exports for palm oil and palm-based products will hit RM70 billion this year, to be supported by the higher average palm oil prices and sustained global demand for the edible oil.
Since early this year, palm oil futures prices have been trading above RM3,000 a tonne, higher than last year’s average of RM2,653 a tonne.
“I hope the palm oil exports this year would be able to do better than last year’s RM67.58 billion. If prices were to go on trading at supportive levels, a four per cent growth to RM70 billion was achievable.”