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RI calls for cut in soybean oil imports
Indonesia has called on other palm oil producing countries to reduce their imports of rapeseed and other products from Europe, citing the same environmental concerns raised by the European Union (EU) in its campaign to curb palm oil use
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span>Indonesia has called on other palm oil producing countries to reduce their imports of rapeseed and other products from Europe, citing the same environmental concerns raised by the European Union (EU) in its campaign to curb palm oil use.
The call was made before the States General of the Netherlands by Mahendra Siregar, who was speaking as executive director of the Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) at a meeting on palm oil in The Hague, the Netherlands, last week.
The meeting was also attended by representatives of European multinational consumer goods company Unilever and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), as well as researchers from Wageningen University.
“Indonesia, along with other palm oil producing countries, should consider imposing limitations on the imports of rapeseed and other products from Europe that contribute to high levels of CO2 emissions, which include dairy, meat products and wine,” said Mahendra, who is also the Indonesian Ambassador to the United States.
He suggested further that an interministerial working group be established to “reorient investment and trade away from the EU toward more friendly, genuine partners” and encouraged the private sector to find alternative markets in response to the EU’s palm oil ban.
Mahendra argued that the EU’s environmental grounds in campaigning against palm oil were only made to ensure the competitive position of the latter’s home-produced rapeseed, and were hence unjustified and discriminatory.
The EU Commission has decided to adopt a directive on renewable energy that will phase out and ban the use of palm oil in the EU biofuel sector by 2030, arguing that the production of crude palm oil has led to deforestation, reduced biodiversity and increased greenhouse gas emissions.
Indonesia and Malaysia, as the largest and second-largest palm oil producers in the world, respectively, have threatened to boycott EU products and take legal action through the World Trade Organization (WTO) if the EU goes ahead with its plan. The EU’s palm oil policy will affect millions of farmers in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Mahendra added that the EU’s approach had failed to address the growing global demand for vegetable oil, which is expected to increase to 310 million tons by 2040 from 165 million tons in 2013.
Palm oil currently contributes 35 percent of the total global vegetable oil demand. Some 75 percent of palm oil is used for food while the remainder is used for cosmetics, cleaning products and biofuels. The EU is the second-biggest customer of Indonesia’s palm oil, which is also the country’s largest export commodity in terms of volume.
There is no recent data available on Indonesia’s imports of vegetable oil. According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), Indonesia’s supply of vegetable oil (other than palm oil) totaled 36,472 tons worth US$40.4 million in the January-September period of 2018.
His statement was supported by a recent study conducted by the palm oil task force of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in response to the EU’s negative campaign against palm oil.
Mahendra said Indonesia had made efforts to achieve sustainability, such as by establishing a moratorium on forest clearance with a 70 percent reduction acknowledged by the World Resources Institute in 2017 and issuing the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certification. However, the EU has largely ignored these efforts, he said. (ars)
