The country’s palm oil import in 2009 crossed the million tonnes mark to a total of 1,023,128 tonnes including crude and refined palm oil, reports BSS.

Malaysian Palm oil marketing sources said in Dhaka the country saw a record growth in import of edible oil last year, mainly palm oil joining the million tonnes’ importers club.

Import grew by a record 25.39 per cent from January to December last year compared to that in previous 2008, sources said further.

Meanwhile, the offer of a new credit line announced during a conference of Malaysian Palm Oil Council held recently in Dhaka to support further market expansion of palm oil in Bangladesh is likely to bring a new boost to its imports.

The commerce minister of Bangladesh is expected to visit Malaysia soon, the source said adding detailed might be worked out on this credit line issue centring the forthcoming visit.

Previous :Palm oil : Malaysia to stop turn down In Palm Oil Exports To Bangladesh
Bonus for producer of palm oil
Palm oil is the most widely used edible oil in the world. Last year, about 40 million tons of it was consumed and 500,000 tons in Britain alone.

In developing countries it is used mainly as a cooking ingredient, but in the West it is used by the major food manufacturers to make all those things people love to eat, even if they know they shouldn’t – cakes, biscuits, crisps, ice-cream and so on. It is also used to produce toiletries, but 90 per cent goes into foodstuffs.

It is even used in bread and margarine. In fact, if a food product lists vegetable oil as an ingredient, the chances are that it is palm oil.

The oil is in such high demand because it is cheaper to produce than any other. Palms grow fast and the yield on the crop is ten times that of its nearest rival, soy. Palm oil has also grown in popularity recently because it does not contain trans-fats, which have been linked to heart disease.
Asian Plantations (Traded on: AIM, Ticker: PALM) does none of these things. The company joined Aim in November last year and operates from Sarawak in Malaysia. Malaysia banned the conversion of forest into agricultural land 15 years ago, so the sites that Asian Plantations owns have been officially designated for farming.

In most of Malaysia, the land suitable for palm oil production has already been snapped up, but Sarawak is remote and opportunities still exist, particularly for well-connected entrepreneurs.

Asian Plantations is run by two chief executives – Dennis Melka, a financier who has spent the past decade in south-east Asia, and Graeme Brown, a plantations and agriculture expert who is married to the daughter of one of the leading families in Sarawak.

This means the company combines financial know-how, farming expertise and local connections. The group owns more than 10,000 hectares, some of which were acquired last month and are already producing oil.

The rest of the land is at an earlier stage. Asian Plantations has planted out 2,000 hectares and these should start to deliver oil late next year.

Palms spend the first nine months of their life in a nursery and the first harvest comes 18 months later. Supply rises steadily for about seven years and the palms will deliver at that rate for another 18 years or so.

Asian Plantations expects to have planted a further 2,000 hectares by 2011 and the profits should start flowing in 2012. Brown is also something of a pioneer, having invented a way of sterilising palm fruit in a way that is more efficient, less labour intensive and more environmentally friendly than other methods as it converts the methane produced into electricity to power the process.

Midas verdict: Asian Plantations is a young company and, as such, there are risks attached. The business may well try to raise more money from shareholders and there may be moments when the market takes against the stock because the price of palm oil dips, for example.

On the plus side, the firm is well run and is involved in the production of a crop for which demand continues to increase as global populations grow.

China and India are two of the biggest consumers of palm oil and, as they become richer, their desire for processed foods that use the oil will only increase.

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palm oil -ice cream

Tags: Bangladesh, export, import, Malysia, Palm oil, plantaion

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 5:03 pm and is filed under Bangladesh, Malysia, Bangladesh, agriculture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.