Exporters reject EU plan on palm oil

JAKARTA (JP): Southeast Asian palm oil exporters are concerned by the European Union's (EU) plan to eliminate preferential treatment for palm oil imports, saying the move could hurt them.

The vice chairman of the Federation of Edible Oil and Fats Association, Tarmidzi Rangkuti, said yesterday the plan could cause European import tariffs on palm oil to rise from 2.5 percent to 4 percent.

The association is one of four members of the ASEAN Vegetable Oils Club (AVOC). The other members are the oil and fats associations of Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Tarmidzi said the EU plan was discussed by AVOC members in Jakarta last week. AVOC decided to request the EU to keep its preferential program.

He was quoted by Antara as saying requests would be sent to all EU member countries.

Tarmidzi said AVOC had asked the EU to reintroduce a regulation on the transportation of crude palm oil (CPO) -- the raw material in cooking oil -- and cooking oil.

According to Tarmidzi, the regulation stipulated that any ship carrying CPO or cooking oil must have carried foodstuff on its previous trip.

Under a new ruling, the EU distinguishes between ships carrying CPO and those carrying cooking oil. The old ruling still applies to ships carrying CPO. But the new ruling states that ships transporting cooking oil must have carried foodstuff in all of their last three trips.

Tarmidzi acknowledged the new ruling did not affect Indonesia much because Indonesia exported more CPO than cooking oil. But it particularly hurts Malaysia which is a big exporter of cooking oil.

He said AVOC had decided to reject the new ruling because it was hard to find ships to meet this requirement.

"If such a vessel were available, it would be very expensive," he said. (pwn)