PROVIDING PALM OIL REFINERY TRAINING FOR PAKISTANIS

By P. Vijian

NEW DELHI, Feb 17 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and its
Pakistan counterpart have signed an agreement that will enable Malaysia to share
its technical know-how to train local experts in the refinery industry.

In interview from Karachi, Pakistan Edible Oil Refiners Association (PEORA)
vice-chairman A. Rasheed Janmohammad told Bernama that the memorandum of
understanding, signed last week, would help the country's infant refinery
industry.

"We have nine edible oil refineries in Pakistan but we are relatively new
and we do not have the enough expertise to process crude palm oil while Malaysia
is the mother of palm oil," said Rasheed.

Under the agreement, Malaysia plans to send technical experts starting this
May or June on a yearly basis to train Pakistani engineers in the refinery
industry.

Pakistan relies 80 percent on imports to meet its domestic demand. The South
Asian nation, the fourth world's largest buyer of vegetable oil,
imports 1.8 million tonnes from Indonesia and Malaysia, out of which half a
million tonnes are in crude form.

Malaysia is the second largest palm oil exporter to Pakistan, after China,
with over a million tonnes and this is likely to rise after both countries
signed the Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2007, where Pakistan
agreed to lower its duties on the product.

The existing nine refineries in Pakistan produce 4,500 tonnes of refined
palm oil per day but not operating at the optimal level.

"Sometimes we have one percent losses or more. We want to reduce these loses
and go to the optimal level," he said.

Malaysia is a leading producer and exporter of palm oil with 51 percent of
world production and 62 percent of world exports.
-- BERNAMA