DUBAI, Feb 6 (Bernama) -- Malaysia is looking at new ways to boost palmoil exports to Gulf Arab countries, a senior Malaysian Palm Oil Board(MPOB) official said here on Tuesday.

The two countries that hold huge potential for Malaysian palm oil areSaudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

While the former is a huge market due to its big size, the latter hasemerged as the region's re-export centre.

Iftikhar Ahmad, the Karachi-based MPOB regional manager for Central andWest Asia, told Bernama that it was estimated that the annual UAE palm oilimport was about 300,000 tonnes, but the local consumption was only about50,000 tonnes.

"Dubai's importance as a re-export centre is great and we want to tap thismarket," he said.

Ahmad and other MPOB officials from the Pakistan-based regional officewere here to hold a "technical" seminar on the use of palm oil.

The Malaysian ambassador to the UAE, Datuk Syed Hussein Al Habshee, whoopened the seminar, said that Palm oil was a major UAE import fromMalaysia and is used both as frying oil for industrial application and ascooking oil in households.

He said that more promotion was required to take advantage of the UAE'sre-export capacity, which increased from 80,000 tonnes in 1996 to 172,000tonnes in 2000.

The 100-odd participants at the seminar felt that the fast food segment inthe Gulf was growing which could lead to a proportional increase in thedemand for palm oil.

Local market experts pointed out that palm oil was considered a goodalternative to soyabean oil, sun oil and corn oil in cooking. -- BERNAMA