Palm oil output up in KL

Palm oil output up in KL

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia's palm oil production this year is expected to be boosted by favorable weather to 7.8 million tons, or about 8.3 percent more than last year's 7.2 million tons, officials said yesterday.

The Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council (MPOPC) said they would step up marketing efforts to absorb the higher output.

"We hope to convince every household in Malaysia as well as in foreign countries of the healthy and nutritional benefits to be reaped via consumption of this oil," MPOPC chief executive officer Mohd Yusof Hashim was quoted saying by Bernama news agency in the eastern Sabah state.

MPOPC has said it will target developing countries with very low oil consumption to diversify its focus out of market- saturated industrialized nations.

The second-highest palm oil producer Indonesia said yesterday it could overtake Malaysia by raising annual output from the current four million tons to 12.29 million tons by 2010.