BANGI, March 25 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has to restrategise its duty freecrude palm oil export to India in the future, Primary Industries Minister,Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said here Tuesday.He said India was a big buyer with 3.5 million tonnes of palm oil annuallyof which 50 percent came from Malaysia."We have not been happy with the discriminatory tariffs that had beenimposed on palm oil as compared to soyabean oil," he said.Currently, the tariffs imposed on crude palm oil is 65 percent while crudesoyabean oil is 45 percent.Tariffs for process palm oil is 92.4 percent while process soyabean oil is50.8 percent.Dr Lim said Malaysia had been taking up this issue for the last threeyears without much headway."There is a huge difference between process and crude palm oil which is 27percent as compared with crude and process soyabean oil which is only fivepercent," he told reporters after launching the 2nd National Seminar onLivestock and Crop Integration (LCI) with Oil Palm and Seminar on Progressof PS1 and PS2 Planting Materials and Release of Elite Germsplasm to theIndustry here Tuesday.The seminar was organised by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB).Dr Lim said the buyers of India would want only to import palm oil in thecrude form because of the huge difference in tariffs."They will then do their own refining and refractionating in Indiaitself," he said.Voicing concern, Dr Lim said Malaysia could not continue supplying crudepalm oil to India as one day Malaysia might be the importer of palmproducts from the India.He said Malaysia had all the downstream industries in Malaysia and itwould be unthinkable if it had to buy back palm oil products from thecountry.Dr Lim said efforts to restrategise did not mean that Malaysia wasretaliating against the Indian government as reported recently in theIndian newspaper.Refuting such claims, Dr Lim said Malaysia was not in the position to takesuch actions."We will make a representation to the Indian government to reduce thetariff discrimination between crude palm oil and soyabean oil," he said."To restrategise our crude palm oil, we will also discuss the matter withour Indonesian counterparts and our exporters here," Dr Lim said.He said he would be talking to both parties when the time was right.Dr Lim urged smallholders and those in estates and land schemes underFelda, Felcra, Risda (Rubber Industry Smallholders's DevelopmentAuthority) to adopt new methods of farming - the integrated farming aswell as the use of new clones in order to stay competitive.He said this was very important for the future of the palm oil industry.If not, he said the industry would end up like rubber.Dr Lim said therefore the seminars were timely and appropriate as theywere aimed at integration of farming activities with palm oil and adoptionof new planting materials.He cited Indonesia having newer cultivated areas and lower labour costwhile Malaysia has old cultivated areas and higher labour cost but newertechnology.Dr Lim said Malaysian palm oil producers should adopt new technologies toreduce production cost to remain competitive.MPOB chairman, Tan Sri Basir Ismail said that he would discuss further inthe second seminar details the various technical aspects of the LCI."This will be supplemented with information on the management, husbandry,economics, business incentives, financial and marketing," he added. --BERNAMA