Additional palm oil cess damaging: Yong

Kota Kinabalu: Hitting the palm oil industry with an additional cess of RM2 per tonne of crude palm oil and palm kernel oil is damaging the economic recovery of the country, especially oil palm producing states like Sabah, said Palm Oil Industry Cluster POIC) Sabah Chairman Datuk Yong Teck Lee (pic).

He said the new RM2 cess, effective February 15, is on top of the RM14 (per tonne of palm oil) that has been enforced since January 2020.

“The current spike in CPO (crude palm oil) prices is caused by a combination of lower production and global economic recovery,” he said in a statement, Wednesday. 

“The current good prices of CPO is not as rosy as it seems on the surface.  

“It is common knowledge that many plantations are not able to fully harvest their fruits (fresh fruit bunches) due to problems of foreign labour.”

As such, he said, even though the rise in CPO prices is a welcome break for the palm oil industry, the current prices is not as profitable as what a tax collector might assume. 

“After all, the palm oil industry is still at the early stages of recovering from the economic gloom caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I notice that each time the oil palm sector is beginning to recover, the Government will impose new taxes. 

“Other than windfall tax, the palm oil industry had been hit with a new cooking oil subsidy that the oil palm industry is forced to bear on behalf of the whole nation in 2008,” he said.