BERLIN-- German stakeholders maintain palm oil is a good product and want more publicity on its positive attributes, says Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) chairman Datuk Lee Yeow Chor.
He said the industry players had voiced out complaints during a roundtable discussion held with visiting Malaysian officials that they were being targeted by the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the quality of palm oil.
"They want us to have better communication on the strength of palm oil. To portray the image of palm oil as a sustainably produced oil," he told Bernama here over the weekend.
Lee told the stakeholders that the MPOC office in Brussels would provide the support as well as information and materials needed to counter the false allegations.
He explained that there was no deforestation for palm oil as the way forward now was to increase production by way of productivity yield.
Lee was part of the 20-member delegation led by Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok on a working visit to Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium from Nov 10 to 21.
In Berlin, members had the opportunity to visit a power plant using palm oil in cooperation with Vattenfall Europe.
The standalone combined heat and power plant of 450 kilowatt hours had been receving palm oil as feedstock on a weekly basis from the IOI Group refinery in Rotterdam.
Lee, who is also executive director of IOI Corp, said the plant was running on coal, natural gas as well as 10 per cent palm oil.
"However, they envisaged to use more palm oil. Palm oil is better than rapeseed for power generation as it produces less residue inside the engines," he said.
The Germans have not only shown that palm oil can run a power plant but also demonstrated a car which had a modified engine to run on palm diesel and petroleum.
According to Lee, the private owner of the car has been using palm diesel for three years now and did not encounter any problem.
In his recent address during a luncheon with German parliamentarians, Lee said Germany had been a major buyer of palm oil for biofuel, especially for transport and generating energy.
He said Germany was also seeking ways to ease the industrial impact on the environment.
However, Lee said Europe's renewable energy directive, which was supposed to support renewable energy, had been abused by the green groups, from NGOs down to the farmers, to block competition from foreign produce.
The new directive, adopted in April 2009 and entering into force in December 2010, further develops the European legislative framework, setting new mandatory national targets for renewable energy.
Lee said palm oil is an efficient vegetable oil crop which is six to 10 times more productive than other oil crops, but it is being curtailed due to trade and other barriers.
He said developing nations needed more market access for their palm oil products.
Lee said should palm oil be taken away from the trade equation, the world would be scrambling for more oil which in turn would see more land being open up for production by other oil crops to fill up the gap left by palm oil.
"This defeats all purpose of keeping the world green," he said.
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