Chinese firms’ growing influence in palm oil value chain will endure despite global volatilities: RSPO China head

Compared to mature markets like Europe and the United States where over 90 per cent of total palm oil imports are certified sustainable, bolstering the uptake of sustainable palm oil among Chinese firms has been an uphill task over the past decade. The challenge also persists as the Chinese government has yet to introduce regulations that target palm oil sustainability – equivalent or similar to the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). In China, firms and palm oil buyers are more sensitive to top-down policy signals and are harder to persuade, said Fang Lifeng, who helms the Beijing office of palm oil trade certifier Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Uptake of certified sustainability palm oil in China, which is the world’s second largest importer of the commodity, has been at about 8 to 9 per cent. Yet, in the past year, there has been greater momentum among Chinese firms to position themselves as leaders, not only in the domestic market, but in building a ...