JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia will lift its ban on palm oil exports next week, President Joko Widodo said Thursday, relieving pressure on the global vegetable oil market after prices spiked because of the suspension and the war in Ukraine. The archipelago nation issued the ban last month to secure supplies of the commodity, used in a range of goods from chocolate spreads to cosmetics, in the face of a domestic shortage. “Based on […]
Tag: palm oil
Indonesia suspends all exports of palm oil, raising risk of destabilizing global vegetable oil market
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia began imposing a complete ban on palm oil exports Thursday, as the world’s largest producer of the commodity risked destabilising a global vegetable oil market already hitting peak prices. The archipelago nation is facing a domestic shortage of cooking oil as well as soaring prices, with consumers in several cities having to queue for hours in front of distribution centres to buy the essential commodity at subsidised rates. Authorities […]
Malaysian palm oil giant hit with US ban over abuse concerns
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The United States has banned imports from a Malaysian palm oil giant whose products are found in numerous everyday goods worldwide over concerns its workers face a litany of abuse. Palm oil is a common ingredient in items ranging from processed foods to cosmetics, and Malaysia is the second-biggest producer of the commodity after neighbouring Indonesia. Together, the countries produce 85 percent of the world’s supply. But the industry […]
Sumatran elephant ‘poisoned’ in Indonesia palm plantation
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AFP)- A critically endangered elephant has been found dead in a palm oil plantation on Indonesia’s Sumatra island in what is suspected to be a deliberate poisoning, an official said Friday. The 10-year-old female Sumatran elephant was found in Jambo Reuhat village in North Aceh on Thursday — the third of its species to be found dead of suspected poisoning in the same palm plantation since 2015. “We found fruits and a pouch with traces of powder inside the animal,” Aceh […]
EU palm oil ban sows bitter seeds for Southeast Asian farmers
Langkat, Indonesia (AFP)- Indonesian palm oil farmer Kawal Surbakti says his livelihood is under attack, but the threat is not from insects or hungry orangutans eating his prized crop. Half a world away, the European Parliament is moving to ban the use of palm oil in biofuels, while British grocer Iceland has announced it will stop using the commodity over concerns that it causes widespread environmental destruction. Losing the key European market worries small farmers like Surbakti and […]
Palm oil giant still linked to Indonesia logging: Greenpeace
SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) — The world’s largest palm oil trader is still linked to deforestation in Indonesia despite committing five years ago to stop logging the archipelago’s vast tracts of jungle, Greenpeace said Monday. Singapore-listed Wilmar International has close family ties to Gama, a major Indonesian palm oil plantation company which the environmental group said has destroyed an area of rainforest twice the size of Paris. Gama was set up by Wilmar’s co-founder and his […]





