ALOR GAJAH, July 3 — Crude palm oil (CPO) prices are not expected to fall below RM4,500 a tonne, said Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin.

She said that CPO prices were expected to drop by the end of the year but this had occurred earlier as a result of Indonesia’s palm oil export ban and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

"The price of palm oil has not dropped to previous levels of RM2,500, but as expected, the norm would be between RM4,500 and RM5,000 a tonne and we are in that phase now.

"This is what I had expected, that the new norm would be between RM4,500 and RM5,000 a tonne. Nevertheless, palm oil producers are still enjoying high prices and they are still getting a high income,” she said.

The minister was speaking to reporters after a working visit to the "single origin” planting plot at Ting Agro Enterprise (TAE) cocoa farm in Kampung Panchor, here, today.

CPO prices have been on a downward trend recently, falling from RM6,753.50 a tonne on June 7, 2022, to RM5,046.00 a tonne on June 22, 2022, a slide of 25.3 per cent.

Meanwhile, Zuraida said the government will not hesitate to withdraw or suspend the licenses of the one kilogramme (kg) packet cooking oil manufacturers if there were proof that they are selling them on the black market.

She said the government had allocated 60,000 metric tonnes of subsidised cooking oil for about 32 million people in the country.

"We have calculated that there are 32 million Malaysians and with 60,000 metric tonnes, each Malaysian will get at least 2kg (of cooking oil) a month.

"On average, a family would have 10kg a month,” she said.

Earlier, Zuraida handed over contributions worth RM250,000 from the Malaysian Rubber Council (MRC), Malaysian Rubber Board (MRB) and the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MPIC) to 50 rubber smallholders and B40 families in Kampung Bukit Payung, here.

The recipients received food baskets consisting of rice, granulated sugar, wheat flour, cooking oil and cash. — Bernama