KARACHI: Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and Pakistan Customs jointly organised a seminar at Directorate General of Training Research (DGTR) Building (Old Custom House) here the other day.
At the inaugural session of seminar, Consul General of Malaysia in Karachi Abu Bakar Mamat stated that the Malaysian palm oil products are export oriented commodities and quality has always been emphasized in the Malaysian palm oil industry. With this in mind, enormous efforts have been undertaken by the government particularly through the MPOB and private sectors on the quality assurance systems across the supply, production, handling and services which are based on mutual respect and shared responsibilities between all parties involved. The Malaysian government has an important role in providing policy guidance by establishing rules and legislations or frameworks that incorporates quality and food safety for the Malaysian palm oil products.
The MPOB Act 1998 or Malaysian Act 582 imposed conditions and requirements to regulate the Malaysian palm oil industry. All licensees are required to submit records of production, purchases, transport, sales, storage, trading and stocks of oil palm products to MPOB on regular basis. This information enables us to monitor and maintain good health of the industry by tracking the critical points such as quality performance of the products been produced and exported.
MPOB has set up port offices at all the major ports in Malaysia for monitoring and enforcement of exported palm oil products. Samples are collected from producers and export/import points including ship’s tanks. This is to ensure that the palm oil products quality complies with the contractual quality specification in order to safeguard the interest of the buyers. In this way, the buyers are guaranteed of a reliable supply of quality products from Malaysia.
The CG hoped that this event will spur greater cooperation between MPOB and Pakistan Customs and further strengthen relationship between Malaysia and Pakistan remains a very large consumer of vegetable oils and fats and a very large market for palm oil. In 2013, Pakistan imported more than 1.4 million tons of palm products from Malaysia valued more than RM 3.6 billion that time. Import of Malaysian palm products in Jan-Oct 2014 is about 810,000 tonnes.
At the seminar, Director General, Directorate General of Training Research (Customs) Karachi Ghulam Amhed, Principal, Directorate General of Training Research (Customs) Karachi, Abdul Basit Chaudhary, Additional Director, Directorate General of Training Research (Customs) Karachi, Shoukat Ali, Director of Licensing and Enforcement, MPOB, Muslim Imam, Regional Manager – MPOB Karachii, Fairus Hidzir and Head of Quality Control Unit – MPOB Hj ZainalShafie also spoke. Later, shields and souvenirs among the Customs officers and officials were distributed by the MPOB officials and Pakistan Customs officers.
