The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) and Pakistan Edible Oil Development Refiners Association (PEORA) have signed an agreement that will enable Malaysia to transfer its technical know-how to Pakistani experts in the refinery industry.
In this regard, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between PEORA and MPOB last week in Karachi aimed at helping Pakistan's infant refinery industry. Pakistan's High Commission in Kuala Lumpur told Business Recorder that under the agreement, Malaysia plans to send technical experts starting this May or June on a yearly basis to train Pakistani engineers in the refinery industry.
Although Pakistan has nine edible oil refineries in Pakistan, but they are relatively new and do not have enough expertise to process crude palm oil, while Malaysia has advanced knowledge of refining the palm oil. In an interview PEORA Vice Chairman, A Rasheed Jan Mohammad told that the MoU would help Pakistan 's infant refinery industry. He said that nine existing refineries in Pakistan produce 4,500 tonnes of refined palm oil per day. However, due to lack of expertise, they are not operating at the optimal levels and even suffer losses.
The training will certainly increase the capacity of the work force to operate these refineries at the optimal level, he added. It may be added that Pakistan relies on 80 percent on imports to meet its domestic demand. Pakistan is the fourth largest buyer of vegetable oil, imports 1.8 million tonnes from Indonesia and Malaysia, out of which, half a million tonnes are in crude form.
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