Lifting palm oil ban before cabinet
The Government is likely to lift the palm oil ban this year after Indonesian President Joko Widodo called for the lifting of import restrictions on Indonesian palm oil and related products at a bilateral meeting at the 10th World Water Summit, with President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Monday.
Presidential Secretariat officials told the Business Times that a Cabinet paper in this regard has been submitted to the Cabinet already. They said President Wickremesinghe had instructed an advisor to assist with this process.
Indonesian Ambassador Dewi Gustina Tobing who also participated in the meeting with the two countries’ Presidents said it was a fruitful discussion. “Palm oil is an important commodity and brings benefit to the economy as experienced by Indonesia. We believe that it certainly could help the economy of Sri Lanka, so we are keen to have the consideration of Sri Lankan government to lift the cultivation of palm oil,” she told the Business Times adding that the two countries could share their best practice in cultivating palm oil to Sri Lankan stakeholders.
The palm oil industry in Sri Lanka has been the subject of much debate, with some claiming that it is unsustainable and environmentally harmful. However, the facts paint a different picture. Sri Lanka’s palm oil industry utilises less than 12,000 hectares of land, all of which is existing plantation land, indicating that the industry is not contributing to deforestation or ecosystem degradation.
The two main ways that Sri Lanka’s palm oil business contributes significantly to the country’s economy are that it keeps more money in the local economy by reducing the nation’s dependency on imported edible oils and it taps into the significant unrealised potential of the business to generate new economic opportunities for individuals, an industry official said.
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