KUALA LUMPUR: The Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Malaysia Datuk Seri Mah Siew Keong received a courtesy call from the United States Ambassador Kamala Lakhdhir together with the delegates from the United States Embassy in Malaysia.
Mah described the meeting as a great milestone in forging a much closer relationship between the two countries towards a better understanding of the complexity and scale of palm oil, rubber and timber related issues.
This represents the first meeting between the Ministry officials and the US Embassy counterparts since Mah assumed office in the end of June 2016.
During the courtesy call, Mah expressed that Malaysia is looking forward to further increasing agricommodity trade between the two countries.
The meeting was also attended by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk K Yogeesvaran.
Since 2009, the Malaysian palm oil industry has been listed in the Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, first as one of the industries using forced labour, and later child labour in 2014.
This issue was raised during the discussion.
Mah emphasized that Malaysian palm oil industries recognized, and have taken efforts to ensure the welfare of workers is taken care of.
He also stressed that protecting the welfare of workers is one of the requirements under the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) Certification Scheme, which has been implemented since 2015 and will be made mandatory nationwide by the end of 2019.
As of July 2017, a total of 245,079 ha of plantations have been certified under the MSPO Certification Scheme, which includes 7,570ha of oil palm acreage planted by smallholders.
Malaysia and the United States (US) share a strong bond in the agricommodity trade, with a total commodity trade up to RM14.11 billion in 2016.
Malaysia’s export of agricommodities and commodity-based products in 2016 increased 0.9% (RM13 billion) compared to 2015.
For the period of January-July 2017, export value of agricommodities was RM8.75 billion, a 14.8% growth compared to RM7.6 billion during the same period in 2016.
The exports are largely rubber products valued at RM3.8 billion, followed by palm oil and palm-based products at RM2.5 billion, and timber and timber products valued at RM2.1 billion.