Five  South Asian countries form palm oil alliance

Edible oil trade associations from five palm oil importing countries in South Asia – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal –announced the setting up of Asian Palm Oil Alliance (APOA). The idea is to gain collecting bargaining power and make imports sustainable. “Through APOA, we aim at safeguarding the economic and business interests of the palm oil consuming countries and will work towards increasing the consumption of palm oil in member countries,” Atul Chaturvedi, President, Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA) and first chairman of APOA, told FE. APOA held its first general body meeting on the sidelines of the Globoil Summit. He said that the industry associations of Asian palm oil importing countries, unlike their counterparts in Europe, are not involved in shaping the global discourse on sustainable palm oil in a collective way. “Asian countries, in the last two decades, were instead forced to follow sustainability standards that don’t reflect our market ...