MEDIA URGED TO COUNTER NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNS AGAINST PALM OIL

 MEDIA URGED TO COUNTER NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNS AGAINST PALM OIL
      
      
    KUALA LUMPUR, July 14 (Bernama) -- Media can play an important role in
educating the public to understand the real issues affecting palm oil and
counter negative campaigns carried out by certain quarters.
    
    Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok said
of late there was a disturbing development over the unfair palm oil labelling on
all Australian food.
    
    "I had met Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia Milles Kupa recently to
express Malaysia's concerns on the development," he said at the ministry's Media
Appreciation Night here Wednesday night.
    
    Dompok said he would also be leading a one-week economic and technical
mission to Australia starting July 24 to counter the misconceptions and assert
that Malaysian palm oil was sustainable produced.
    
    On June 23, the Australian Senate passed an amendment to the Food Act
requiring products containing palm oil to be explicitly labelled, rather than be
described as vegetable oil.
        
    Dompok described the Bill as a discriminatory law against palm oil as
competing vegetable oils were not required to do the same.
    
    "The labelling of Malaysian palm oil is not consistent with the prevailing
trade regulations by the World Trade Organisation," he said.
    
    He said the attempt to unfairly label palm oil could be due to the fact that
the Malaysian plantation industry was doing so well that it had to endure
allegations linked to sustainability such as deforestation, illegal logging,
forced labour and claims that palm oil being unhealthy.
    
    Therefore, the ministry has to raise awareness through the media and hoped
the good working relationship between the media and the ministry and its
agencies will be further strengthened, he said.
    
    -- BERNAMA