KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia has no qualms about taking the discriminatory
EU Renewable Energy Directive (EU RED) requirements for palm oil usage
as biofuel to the World Trade Organisation, said Malaysian Palm Oil
Council chief executive officer Tan Sri Yusof Basiron.
“This is
no joke but we will have to wait and cannot act on it now as the EU RED
will only be implemented as national legislation by the year-end,” he
told local and foreign participants on the last day of the International
Palm Oil Sustainability Conference yesterday.
Yusof said the
proposed directive had not only affected palm oil exports into Europe
but also disrupted the business of European biodiesel producers planning
to use palm oil as feedstock for their biofuel production.
He
said palm oil greenhouse gas emission default values were severely
misrepresented to disqualify palm oil from being used as approved
biofuel in the European Union (EU).
Earlier, Yusof suggested the
palm oil industry introduce new sets of sustainability certifications,
such as the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil and the Indonesian
Sustainable Palm Oil, as alternatives if the Roundtable on Sustainable
Palm Oil (RSPO) certification is unacceptable to the EU and the United
States.
“Many Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil producers have to
endure the rigourous and expensive certification to produce certified
sustainable palm oil (CSPO) for the EU market but the uptake of the
premium product is still dissappointing,” he added.
Currently,
about one million tonnes of RSPO-certified palm oil is readily available
in the world market, he said, adding: “However, I believe only 200,000
to 300,000 tonnes of the premium CSPO were taken up by Western
consumers.”
Apart from being the victim of the continuous attacks
from Western environment NGOs, Yusof said: “Palm oil will need to
comply with the certifications set by Germany and the US, apart from the
EU RED requirements for biofuel usage in Europe.”
He said it was
unfair for palm oil not to be given the rights to trade on fair grounds
and had to be singled out for sustainability compliance while other
competing oils were not subjected to similar poor treatment.
“Developed
nations must be fair to developing countries which depend on palm oil
to raise their income levels. They should employ fair trading mechanisms
and legislations.”
Source : Business Times by Hanim Adnan
