Malaysia: economic transformation advances oil palm industry Choo Yuen May Formerly, the industry was mainly concentrated on upstream activities such as cultivating palms for production of fruit bunches in plantations, processing fresh fruit bunches (FFB) in mills for CPO and palm kernel oil, producing refined palm oil (RPO) from CPO, and fractionating palm oil (both crude and refined) to obtain liquid olein and solid stearin fractions as well as oleochemical products. This traditional approach was changed when the Malaysian government introduced the Economic Transformation program (ETP) in September 2010. The ETP is a comprehensive effort that outlines a 10-year economic roadmap to energise Malaysia toward becoming a high-income nation by 2020. The implementation of the ETP gave the oil palm industry a new focus after it was identified as one of the 12 National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) to drive the nation’s economy. The palm oil sector NKEA is aimed at improving upstream productivity and increasing downstream expansion, while focusing on the sustainable development of the oil palm industry. To overcome regulatory restrictions and limited land bank for development of new plantations, the government will focus on downstream activities such as processed food, biodiesel, second-generation biofuel, oleo derivatives, and phytonutrients. Further, plantation owners will be encouraged to look farther afield for upstream expansion and to enhance productivity toward the targeted CPO yield of 6 metric tons per hectare per year (MT/ha/yr).
Posted on: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 00:49:50 +0000
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