Archived News

18/11/2008 (China Daily), Yangon - Myanmar strives to cultivate 500, 000 acres (202,500 hectares) of oil palm in the southern Tanintharyi division, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar reported Tuesday.

18/11/2008 (The Jakarta Post) - Palm oil companies are facing increasing pressure from green groups who fear the conversion of forests into plantations could cost the country its rich biodiversity.

18/11/2008 (The Malaysian Insider), Kuala Lumpur - A year ago three Malaysian palm oil producers - Sime Darby, Golden Hope Plantations and Kumpulan Guthrie - merged to form the world's biggest listed palm plantation company in terms of landholdings. That was just in time for the crash in palm oil prices.

17/11/2008 (Bernama), Kuala Lumpur - The pump price of palm biodiesel will remain the same as regular diesel when the biodiesel blend is introduced here next year, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Peter Chin Fah Kui said Monday.

17/11/2008 (Bernama), Kota Kinabalu - Impact of the worsening global economic turmoil has yet to be felt and is expected not to severely affect investments in the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) in Lahad Datu and Sandakan, the state legislature was told Monday.

17/11/2008 (Bernama),Kanowit - Landowners participating in new Native Customary Rights (NCR) land projects in the state now stand to benefit from two new incentives.

17/11/2008 (The Jakarta Post) - The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) will hold its sixth annual meeting Nov. 18 to 20, 2008, in Bali to discus issues ranging from the certification program for members, palm oil small-scale growers, RSPO and government, market standards, biofuel, and other issues the palm oil industry faces looking forward.

17/11/2008 (Berita Sore), Padang - The West Sumatra provincial administration hoped the central government would intensify the implementation of the palmoil-based biodiesel oil production as a medium-solution to the current economic crisis regarding the national CPO commodity.

17/11/2008 (The Star Online), Kota Kinabalu - Help is on the way for thousands of oil palm smallholders in the state who are facing financial dire straits because they have difficulty selling their produce amidst plunging crude palm oil prices.

17/11/2008 (New Europe) - The arrival in Rotterdam of the first shipload of palm oil certified as “sustainable” was celebrated on November 11, despite the release of a report by the environmentalist group Greenpeace that claimed the producer had violated sustainability standards. The palm oil from Malaysian producer United Plantions had been certified as sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil in September. But Greenpeace claimed in a report that the company does not meet all criteria set for an environmentally friendly product as laid down by the roundtable, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.

17/11/2008 (Business Times, Malaysia) - THE battle lines remain drawn for oil palm growers from Malaysia and Indonesia, as pressure groups continue to question the credibility of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification process that was put in place earlier this year.

16/11/2008 (Thaindian News), London - Household names such as Kit Kat, Flora and Dove soaps have been held responsible for the large scale destruction of Asian rainforests for palm oil plantations.