Malaysia rules out cooking oil export curbs, minister says

(May 25): Malaysia, the world’s second-biggest palm oil producer, has ruled out curtailing cooking oil exports as it has enough supplies to meet local demand and will instead focus on targeting subsidies to ensure it benefits the most needy consumers. “So far, we have no worries because we definitely have no shortages at all,” Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin said in an interview on Tuesday (May 24). “Most of the time we export more than half of what we produce, and we still have an excess to export,” she said from her office in the administrative capital of Putrajaya. The nation aims to fill the gap in the edible oil market caused by the Ukraine war, as well Indonesia’s export curbs on palm oil, Zuraida said. She forecast that Malaysia’s palm oil production may rebound to 23 million to 25 million tons in 2022, versus last year’s 18.1 million tons, as Covid-19 pandemic-driven labour shortages ease and foreign workers are allowed back in ...