PUTRAJAYA, Aug 25 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian Palm Oil Promotion Council(MPOPC) regards Iran as a very promising market for the Malaysian palmoil, its chief executive officer Datuk Haron Siraj said today.

"We see a very encouraging expansion in Iran. We regard it as a bigmarket. We are also hoping for things to settle down a bit in South Africaand West Africa, which are good potential markets for palm oil," he said.

However, opening up the West African market will be a little difficult dueto the unfortunate political turmoil, he told Bernama after chairing thefirst session on "Positioning Palm Oil as the Power House for the GlobalOils & Fats Economy" at the International Palm Oil Congress (PIPOC) 2003here today.

As part of its marketing strategy, MPOPC also continues to intensify itspalm oil awareness programmes in these markets as some of them are used toother edible oils such as soya oil, he said.

Nearer to home, he said Vietnam and Myanmar were potential markets whileother markets being eyed were the Central Asian countries and Russia.

More efforts would be taken to expand to these countries, he said.

However, each of the market has its specific needs, and as such, theapproach towards each country will be different, he added.

For example, in some South African countries the "halal" mark is theselling point given that most of the people involved in the countries'food, oil and bakeries are Indian Muslims.

Elsewhere, the fact that palm oil is a natural product and non-geneticallymodified (GMO) is the selling point, he explained.

Palm oil accounted for about 21 percent of the world's production and 46percent of the world's trade in oils and fats in 2002.

MPOPC is the marketing arm for Malaysian palm oil and has branch officesin Sao Paulo, Chicago, Vienna, Cairo, New Delhi, Durban, Shanghai, Lahore,Dhaka and Beijing.

-- BERNAMA