• India has reduced its import duty on CPO to 27.5% from 35.0% effective 27 November 2020. In a Bloomberg article, an official with the Solvent Extractors Association of India said that the lower import duties may affect domestic farmers, who are sowing winter crops presently. The official added that it would have been better if the India government had cut the import duties of other vegetable oils also.
• Bloomberg reported that in spite of the drought due to La Nina, Brazil’s next soybean harvest in 2021F may still be a record as farmers have planted crops more widely. AgRural sees Brazil’s soybean crop at 132.2mil tonnes in 2021F based on trendline yield projections and an area increase of 3.6% and will wait for weather behaviour in the coming weeks to make adjustments. With most of the beans germinating and at vegetative stage, there is time for recovery. An industry expert said that rains in December and January will determine the crops.
• In a related development, Brazil’s soybean processor group Abiove said that the government’s decision to allow soybean oil imports for use in biodiesel production would hurt the domestic oilseed industry. Bloomberg cited Abiove as saying that the government’s resolution without specifying the date, volume and deadline for the imports, implies a change in rules that generate unnecessary instabilities, impairing the predictability and security of investments. Abiove was informed by the government that the import use would only be to meet a biodiesel auction that sets volumes for delivery in January and February 2021.
• The Edge Markets reported that the Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA) has slammed a recent news report by the Associated Press (AP), saying that it was exaggerated and an antipalm oil propaganda. The MPOA said that plantation companies by law, are required to abide by the principles of the MSPO standards, which have in place measures to prevent violence, aggression and harassment against women and children. The AP article was based on interviews with more than three dozen women and girls from at least 12 companies in Indonesia and Malaysia. The article focused on the brutal treatment of women in the production of palm oil, including the hidden scourge of sexual abuse, ranging from verbal harassment to rape.
• Jakarta Post reported that the Indonesian Employers Association’s (Apindo) chairman has defended a government circular instructing regions to leave their minimum wage unchanged in 2021, arguing that the policy is based on “data and facts” in respect of the pandemic’s impact on businesses. Apindo’s chairman said that the calculation was based on the Government Regulation No 78/2015 on wages, which included a formula that accounted for inflation and economic growth. Apindo also criticised the decisions of several regional administrations to increase their provincial minimum wage in spite of the Manpower Ministry circular. Several regional administrations such as Central Java, Jakarta, East Java and Yogyakarta have announced that they will raise next year’s minimum wage.

Source: AmInvest Research - 30 Nov 2020