Activities at POTS will include a mixture of seminars and trade exhibitions.

Themed "Opportunities For Malaysia-Africa-Partnership For Food, Fuel and Feed Industries," about 200 key players from the Malaysian and African palm oil industry will be participating in the three-day event, which will take off Sunday at Gallagher Estate, Johannesburg, South Africa.

"The trade fair and seminar concept is designed by MPOC to develop the palm oil industry worldwide and generate new opportunities for palm oil trade globally," MPOC's chief executive officer, Tan Sri Dr Yusof Basiron said.

MPOC also will use the platform to make known to the Africans that Malaysia palm oil industry is a global leader in the production of palm oil and oil palm products through sustainable methods that readily meet global criteria and standards.

"We hope that this will generate increased interest among the African users and traders to consider Malaysian palm oil as their first and only option," he told Bernama in an e-mail reply.

He said while benefiting from the business networking opportunities, it was MPOC's hope that the industry players can use the knowledge and ideas to generate greater sales of Malaysian palm oil for their organisations.

The exhibition is an avenue for local players to interact with potential buyers face to face and educate them on their services and product quality.

The main sponsors for the event are Felda Holdings Bhd and its joint-venture company in South Africa, Felda-Bridge Africa, followed by Golden Hope, Southcomm Africa, Louis Dreyfus Commodities and FR waring.

Among the key speakers are CIMB Futures Sdn Bhd's Manager-Palm Desk, K.K Loh, MPOC's deputy chief executive officer, Dr Kalyana Sundram, Southcomm managing director, Rob Abendanon, Felda Bridge Africa's general manager, Bryce Varner and Louis Dreyfus Commodities Africa's general manager, Shailendra Mishra.

Malaysia's palm oil market share is growing in the region. In 2001, Malaysia's market share was only 15.9 percent but it grew annually to reach 53.5 percent in 2006. In South Africa, the share is currently 92.1 percent.

Overall Malaysian palm oil exports to Sub-Sahara region was slightly over 1.10 million metric tonnes. On a country basis, South Africa imported almost 260,000 metric tonne of Malaysian palm oil.

-- BERNAMA