KUCHING, July 12 — Local producers of palm oil must make do with hiring Malaysian workers for the time being, Deputy Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Willie Mongin said today.

He was responding to Sarawakian oil palm industry companies which warned of the industry’s imminent collapse due to crippling labour shortage and restrictions of the standard operating procedure (SOP) under the government’s Covid-19 lockdowns.

Willie said that national borders have to remain closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and acknowledged that it has disrupted the intake of foreign workers.

"However, due to the nature of the work which requires high physical labour, the involvement of the locals is seen to be temporary and fluctuated from month-to-month basis,” he said.

But he also said the labour shortage has been a long-standing issue in the oil palm sector even as he noted the impact on output.

"During January-May 2021, the average number of workers in the plantation sector declined by 8.0 per cent as compared to that of the same corresponding period last year,” he said.

He noted that Sarawak recorded the largest decline by 11.5 per cent, followed by peninsular Malaysia by 9.3 per cent and Sabah by 4.2 per cent.

"Despite recording the largest decline in the number of workers, Sarawak managed to record positive growth of 0.6 per cent in FFB production during the corresponding period.

"Peninsular Malaysia also seems able to manage the reduction in workers as the FFB processed of that region declined only by 3.0 per cent to 19.25 million tonnes from 19.85 million,” he said.

Only Sabah was hit hard when its FFB processed declined 12.1 per cent to 7.63 million tonnes.

FFB refers to fresh fruit bunches.

In a statement yesterday, Sarawakian oil palm industry players said they were "suffering an unprecedented decline in productivity and yields” due to the closed national border to slow the spread of the viral disease.

They cited statistics from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board that showed Sabah and Sarawak collected a total of 15.246 million tonnes of FFB from January to May this year.

They pointed out that this was a drop of 970,350 tonnes or about six per cent from the same period last year.