KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 26 — Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok today said she will be meeting Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah next week to discuss the country’s palm oil issue, after the latter returns from his working trip to Brussels, Belgium.
Kok said the meeting with Saifuddin will be with two other ministries: International Trade and Industry; and the Water, Land and Natural Resources.
“Saifuddin said he wanted to meet all of us after he returns from Europe,” she told reporters at broadcaster 8TV’s Chinese New Year grand bazaar at Bukit Jalil here.
Saifuddin is in Brussels to meet with his counterparts from the European Union (EU) member states as well as EU parliamentarians to discuss bilateral relations.
Wisma Putra earlier today said Saifuddin held separate meetings with foreign ministers from Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania, Spain, and the EU, as well as the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs and its two vice-presidents while attending the 22nd Asean-EU Ministerial Meeting from January 21-23.
On her ministry’s year-long “Love MY Palm Oil” campaign, Kok said Malaysians needed to be made aware of the goodness in embracing palm oil as it was an important commodity to the country.
“Malaysian have to stand together with the government in fighting against the unfairness perpetrated by EU on our commodity,” she said.
The campaign, which was mooted by Kok on January 8, was to instil pride and a greater appreciation for Malaysian palm oil, by focusing on socio-economic importance, health, nutrition and food, and non-food applications.
This followed the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety passing a resolution last October to ban palm oil biofuels in Europe by 2020.
Malaysia and Indonesia are the largest producers of palm oil globally.
