MARKET DEVELOPMENT
Palm Oil Industry Needs To Raise Productivity, Says MPOB DG
Palm Oil Industry Needs To Raise Productivity, Says MPOB DG
03/11/2014 (Bernama) - Malaysia's palm oil industry needs to increase its productivity and enhance its environmental performance for it to compete in world markets, said Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) director general Datuk Dr Choo Yuen May.
She said the country's palm oil industry continues to face numerous challenges in terms of environmental concerns, nutrtional issues, trade barriers, labour problems and recently declining prices.
"As such, it must continually re-invent itself to remain competitive," she said at the opening of the National Seminar on Palm Oil Milling, Refining, Environment and Quality here today.
According to Choo, the industry must constantly improve its performance through the introduction of innovations and its operations.
She said MPOB has launched over 500 technologies for the upstream plantation sector to downstream value-added processing sectors involving new processes, techiques, machinery, equipment and products.
She said 30 per cent of these have been commercialised and adopted for use by the industry, including a promising zero discharge technology free of digested palm oil mill effluent (POMED) and a five-stage winnowing column.
"MPOB strives to be a world-class R&D institution in order to deliver research findings which will help the industry," she added.
Choo said the growing demand by market forces for sustainable palm oil also imposes an additional burden on the industry.
With the whole world geared towards certified palm products, Malaysia has no choice but to go with the flow, and MPOB has taken the lead in establishing its own Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) Standard, she said.
"This standard will be the benchmark for the industry to adopt," she said, adding she hoped industry players would take up the challenge.
She said the country's palm oil industry continues to face numerous challenges in terms of environmental concerns, nutrtional issues, trade barriers, labour problems and recently declining prices.
"As such, it must continually re-invent itself to remain competitive," she said at the opening of the National Seminar on Palm Oil Milling, Refining, Environment and Quality here today.
According to Choo, the industry must constantly improve its performance through the introduction of innovations and its operations.
She said MPOB has launched over 500 technologies for the upstream plantation sector to downstream value-added processing sectors involving new processes, techiques, machinery, equipment and products.
She said 30 per cent of these have been commercialised and adopted for use by the industry, including a promising zero discharge technology free of digested palm oil mill effluent (POMED) and a five-stage winnowing column.
"MPOB strives to be a world-class R&D institution in order to deliver research findings which will help the industry," she added.
Choo said the growing demand by market forces for sustainable palm oil also imposes an additional burden on the industry.
With the whole world geared towards certified palm products, Malaysia has no choice but to go with the flow, and MPOB has taken the lead in establishing its own Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) Standard, she said.
"This standard will be the benchmark for the industry to adopt," she said, adding she hoped industry players would take up the challenge.