The palm oil contract for April delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange rose as much as 0.82 percent to 2,568 ringgit a tonne, its highest since May 19, 2014, before settling down 0.6 percent 2,531 ringgit ($610.62) per tonne. Traded volume stood at 48,968 lots of 25 tonnes each.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) has condemned the vote in the French National Assembly to impose a discriminatory tax on palm oil produced in the developing world.
MPOC chief executive officer Tan Sri Dr Yusof Basiron said the vote ran against all evidence, supporting a protectionism that discriminates against palm oil from the developing countries.
"The 'differential' tax proposal is a clear violation of both the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and European Union (EU)," he said in a statement on Friday.
The tax was passed in a vote of members of parliament in the National Assembly, as part of the Biodiversity Bill, after Socialist MPs proposed a new 90 euros per tonne tax on palm oil.
This followed an attempt in January by the French Senate to place a 300 euros tax on palm oil.
Yusof said the 90-euro tax is both discriminatory and disproportionate as the economic and environmental arguments put forward by the MPs have been clearly shown to be false.
"MPOC calls on French President Francois Hollande and Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault to stop this tax.
"M. Ayrault promised Malaysia in 2013 that he would not tax palm oil, he promised to the 300,000 small farmers in Malaysia that France would not harm them with a new tax.
"We expect this promise to be kept," he added. - Bernama
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