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Indonesia, EU trade barbs over biodiesel import duties
Earlier this week, Indonesia requested the WTO examine the EU's imposition of duties on biodiesel imports from Indonesia.
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A worker displays oil palm fruits he as harvested in a plantation in Mesuji Raya village in the South Sumatra regency of Ogan Komering Ilir on April 29, 2023. Data show Indonesia exported 2.63 million tonnes of palm oil in February of this year, down from 3.09 tonnes the previous month. (Antara/Budi Candra Setya)
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n the latest dispute regarding palm oil, Indonesia and the European Union have clashed over biodiesel import duties that have been slapped on the Southeast Asian nation’s commodity since 2019.
The bloc said on Thursday it had launched an investigation into whether biodiesel from Indonesia was circumventing EU duties by going through China and the United Kingdom, only two days after Indonesia filed a case regarding the bloc’s imposition of duties with the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The EU is Indonesia's third-largest destination for palm oil products and an important market for its biodiesel, which is made from palm oil. Indonesia is the world's biggest palm oil producer.
The EU's probe followed an initial request from the European Biodiesel Board, an association of European producers.
"The request contains sufficient evidence that the existing countervailing measures on imports of the product concerned are being circumvented by imports of the product under investigation," the European Commission said in the EU's official journal.
"A change in the pattern of trade involving exports from Indonesia and the People's Republic of China and the United Kingdom to the Union has taken place following the imposition of the existing countervailing measures," it added.
Read also: CPO exports to drop further as more palm oil goes to biodiesel: GAPKI
