KUALA LUMPUR, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The campaign by European Union (EU) to ban palm oil products could jeopardize trade relations between its members and Malaysia, a major exporter of the commodity, a Malaysian official said Tuesday.
Malaysian Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok told reporters at the launch of a campaign to promote palm oil use that the recent moves by France, Norway and potentially other EU members were unfair to Malaysia.
"This kinds of rules and resolutions are going to affect the bilateral trade relations between Malaysia and the EU countries.
"We see one after another, the European parliaments are passing resolutions against the import of our palm oil and we feel this is very unfair to Malaysia because we import so many things from Europe including high tech vehicles and aircraft," she said.
The boycott of palm oil was reported as being over concerns of environmental degradation and deforestation for large scale plantations, which Malaysia has repeatedly denied.
Kok added that Malaysia, as the chair of Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries, would work together with others in the group to respond to the EU anti-palm oil campaign.
"I am going to Indonesia next month to discuss this serious matter with them. Both countries are going to work together and take a stand."
Palm oil and palm-based products are currently Malaysia's fifth major export commodity, generating 62.7 billion ringgit (15.2 billion U.S. dollars) in earnings for the first 11 months of 2018, Kok said.
According to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, the country is the second biggest producer of the commodity after Indonesia, overall production accounting for 39 percent of the global output, and has a 44 percent market share of the product on the world market.
