19/02/2009 (APP), Karachi - The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and its Pakistan counterpart Pakistan Edible Oil Development Refiners Association (PEORA) have signed an agreement that will enable Malaysia to share its technical know-how to Pakistani experts in the refinery industry.

In this regard a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Pakistan Edible Oil Refiners Association (PEORA) and MPOB last week in Karachi aimed at helping Pakistan’s infant refinery industry. Under the agreement, Malaysia plans to send technical experts starting this May or June on a yearly basis to train Pakistani engineers in the refinery industry.

Pakistan although has  nine edible oil refineries in Pakistan but they are relatively new and  do not have the enough expertise to process crude palm oil while Malaysia has advanced knowledge of refining the palm oil.

In an interview from Karachi, Pakistan Edible Oil Refiners Association (PEORA) vice-chairman A. Rasheed Janmohammad told Bernama, the premier news agency of Malaysia  that the memorandum of understanding, signed last week, would help Pakistan ’s infant refinery industry Mr. Rasheed said that the existing nine refineries in Pakistan produce 4,500 tonnes of refined palm oil per day but due to lack of expertise, they are not operating at the optimal level and even suffer losses.

The training will certainly increase the capacity of the work force to operate these refineries at the optimal level. 

Pakistan relies 80 percent on imports to meet its domestic demand. The South Asian nation, the  world’s fourth largest buyer of vegetable oil, imports 1.8 million tonnes from Indonesia and Malaysia, out of which half a million tonnes are in crude form.

Pakistan is the second largest palm oil importer from Malaysia, after China, with over a million tonnes and this is likely to rise after both countries signed the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2007, where Pakistan agreed to lower its duties on the product.

Malaysia is a leading producer and exporter of palm oil with 51 percent of world production and 62 percent of world exports.