The Swiss government has allocated grant funding of $65 million (around CHF59 million) over a period of four years to the island nation. The amount set aside is for the 2021-2024 period and will focus on promoting “inclusive and sustainable development”, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) announced on Thursday. The new round of funding…
Palm Oil fruit farmers have resorted to harvesting immature fruits because of improved prices. The price of the Fresh Fruit Bunch-FFB increased to Shillings 700 from Shillings 400 in December last year. The price has increased further to Shillings 831 a kilogram. David Balironda, the Manager Kalangala Oil Palm Tree Out Growers Trust (KOPGT), says…
Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Monday local authorities should get prepared for potential forest fires later this year as hot spots had been detected on the island of Sumatra. The Southeast Asian country has suffered some of the biggest tropical forest fires outside the Amazon and Congo in recent years, putting at risk endangered…
Norway’s Statkraft STATKF.UL and Aker Horizons, a unit of investment firm Aker AKER.OL, have joined chemicals firm Yara YAR.OL in electrifying and decarbonising a plant in Norway to produce zero carbon ammonia, the companies said on Thursday. Yara, one of the world’s largest producers of nitrogen fertilisers, aims to eliminate CO2 emissions from the 500,000-tonnes-a-year…
Environmentalists in Indonesia have called on the government to try and settle more than 1,000 disputes triggered by the presence of palm oil plantations, including agrarian ones between indigenous people and palm oil companies across the country. They said the situation is threatening to spiral out of control In its annual report issued on Feb…
On Oct. 13, Procter & Gamble (P&G) received a stunning rebuke from two-thirds of its voting shareholders, who sent a message that the company is failing to protect communities, forests and the global climate throughout its supply chain. More than 100 days later, P&G, which manufactures Charmin toilet paper entirely from virgin forest fiber, has yet to demonstrate…
The application of disruptive technologies will be the driver of innovations in all sectors including the palm oil industry, Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities Datuk Dr Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali said. He said technologies have been innovated and improved to boost the effectiveness and competitiveness of the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the…
The new ASEAN–EU Strategic Partnership announced on 1 December 2020 marks a turning point in the relationship between the two regional organisations — not only has the donor–recipient dynamic of previous decades disappeared, but now the European Union may need ASEAN more than ASEAN needs the European Union. The strategic partnership contains cooperative arrangements on a wide…
Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation, and 10th largest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, has made enormous gains in poverty reduction – cutting the poverty rate by more than half since 1999, to 9.78 percent in 2020. Nevertheless, out of a population of 270.2 million, an estimated 26.42 million Indonesians still live…
Economist at UOB Group Enrico Tanuwidjaja evaluates the latest trade balance figures in Indonesia. “Indonesia posted another trade surplus of +USD2.0bn in January 2021, slightly narrower from December 2020’s +USD2.1bn. This marked a ninth-straight month of trade surplus since May 2020.” “Exports slowed by +12.2% y/y in January to USD15.3bn (vs. December’s +14.6%) following lower…
The Philippines Coconut Authority (PCA) is pushing to increase the country’s biodiesel mandate in transport to 5pc (B5) from 2pc currently. B2 has been in place since 2009 but Covid-19 disruptions to the biodiesel supply chain meant the Philippines missed its target to achieve B5 in 2020. This was the second time the implementation was…
As the world’s largest producer and consumer of palm oil, the palm oil industry has become an important part of Indonesia’s economy. At least half of the world’s palm oil supplies are supplied from Indonesia. Indonesia supplies with an output of around 40.6 million tons, and export volume of 29.3 million tons in 2018. This…
The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) has produced a new concept of snack food with high commercial potential made from red palm oil. Director-general Dr Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir said the extruded snack food has already been commercialised in China, and this could further increase China’s demand for palm oil. “This red palm-based snack is…
Global baking ingredients company Royal Zeelandia Group has announced plans to make its use of palm oil 100% sustainable. The target was set out in a recent case study published by the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature. Production of palm oil, widely used as a cooking oil and ingredient, has been blamed for deforestation of…
On March 7, the Swiss will vote on a free trade agreement with Indonesia. This is the first treaty to include sustainability criteria in the terms of trade, says Simone de Montmollin, a member of the support committee. The deal, which has already been formally ratified, aims to ease Swiss exports to Indonesia by removing…
Indonesia’s exports of palm products managed to increase amid the pandemic Covid-19. Last year, the export value reached US$22.97 billion or around Rp321.5 trillion. “Exports grew 13.6 percent from 2019,” Eddy Abdurrachman, head of the Oil Palm Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDKS), said in a national seminar on strengthening palm oil management policies, Wednesday, February…
The Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS) chairperson Eddy Abdurrachman in Wednesday’s national webinar on palm oil claimed that the palm oil production during the 2020 pandemic had increased compared to the previous year with a total production of 51.58 million tons. The leftover supply from 2019 was reportedly 4.6 million tons. “Which means…
Palm oil producer PT Astra Agro Lestari Tbk. is forecasting a modest production growth of about five percent in 2021 as most of its crop were already mature, there was no acreage expansion plan, and mobility restriction under the current pandemic limited purchase of oil palm fruits from outside, its President Director, Santosa, said. Speaking…
JAKARTA, Jan 28 (Reuters) – Indonesia set a higher reference price for crude palm oil (CPO) for February at $1,026.78 per tonne, a Trade Ministry regulation published on Thursday showed, up from $951.86 per tonne in January. Based on the reference price, CPO export tax will be set at $93 per tonne in February, while…
Jakarta (ANTARA) – Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto stated that Indonesia’s economy had recovered from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with some indicators having shown a positive trend. “We observed that the consumer confidence index had reached 96.5 in December. We are optimistic of it reaching 100 points,” Hartarto remarked here on…
