The Minister of National Planning and Development (PPN/Bappenas), Bambang Brodjonegoro, said that China is currently implementing the Bio Diesel 5 or B5.
"During a bilateral meeting with the President of China, he (the President of China) stressed that China should increase its imports of CPO, because if I'm not mistaken China has already implemented Bio Diesel 5%, while we're still at 20%. They have just started with 5%, but 5% in China is very significant, and we hope that we can become one of the most significant exporters," Bambang said to reporters in his office in Jakarta on Wednesday (17/5/2017).
In the past, producer countries of CPO have preferred European countries as their export destination. However, the emergence of black campaign issues can be used by Indonesia to divert its CPO exports to China.
"That's why we're hoping that now that China has implemented the 5%, it can become a new market for us," he added.
Bambang stated that the black campaign issues concerning CPO from Indonesia by European countries were also due to concerns that CPO would threaten their production of vegetable oil and olives.
"I see this as a trade war, as Europe wants to protect its vegetable oil, as they have sunflowers, for example, and olive oil, which probably feel threatened by the presence of palm oil, so the environmental reasons are there, but so to speak that is their justification so that they can disrupt the circulation of palm oil there," he explained.
To date, Indonesia's CPO products already possess the ISPO certification, but the ISPO certification is still in the negotiation stage, since several European countries also have proposed their own certifications.
"Yes, as far as I know ISPO was proposed by Indonesia, but there has also been a proposal from Europe which seems to need to be discussed first, so in my opinion the most important thing in this palm oil issue is that producer countries have to be united, so that their voices are united, because the motive is clearly a trade war, with the environmental issues used as a reason, but the main thing is to protect their own productions," he concluded.
EN
