Malaysia's palm oil production forecast to grow 10.8% to 19.8 million tonnes to 2015/2016, report says; cocoa output to increase 11% to 11,100 tonnes; sugar consumption to increase 18.5% to 1.5 million tonnes

Andrew Rogers

DUBLIN , January 25, 2012 (press release) – Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Malaysia Agribusiness Report Q1 2012" report to their offering.

Business Monitor International's Malaysia Agribusiness service provides proprietary medium term price forecasts for key commodities, including corn, wheat, rice, sugar, cocoa, coffee, soy and milk; in addition to newly-researched competitive intelligence on leading agribusiness producers, traders and suppliers; in-depth analysis of latest industry developments; and essential industry context on Malaysia's agribusiness service.

BMI favours Malaysia's agriculture strategy of climbing the value chain. In fact, for the past few years such focus has seen the cocoa and palm oil industries yielding the benefits of higher export revenues. Indeed, Malaysia is a global palm oil refiner as well as cocoa processing destination. The government is expected to pursue this strategy more aggressively over the next ten years, driven by the Tenth Economic Transformation Program (2010-2020). A total of 16 Entry Point Projects are aimed to revitalise the sector with the ultimate objective of increasing contribution to the Gross National Income (GNI) from the current MYR20.2bn (US$6.6bn) to MYR49.1bn by 2020.

Palm Oil Production growth to 2015/16: 10.8% to reach 19.8mn tonnes. BMI is optimistic that Malaysia will remain a top producer and exporter of the cheap vegetable oil and expect the country to delve deeper into downstream projects over the coming years.

Cocoa production to 2015/16: 11.0% to 11,100 tonnes. Malaysia's cocoa production industry has been in dramatic decline since the early 1990s. Despite this, there have been encouraging signs in the world's fifth largest producer of the bean (after Germany, the US, Cte d'Ivoire and the Netherlands).

Sugar consumption to 2016: 18.5% to 1.5mn tonnes. Greater disposable income from an average 5.4% real GDP growth over the next five years will allow Malaysians to spend more on processed foods with high sugar content such as soft drinks and sugar confectionery.

To illustrate the trend of Malaysia's growing capability as a global cocoa refiner, BMI highlights that although exports of raw cocoa beans have fallen off significantly in the past few decades, from 162,600 tonnes in 1990 to less than 20,000 tonnes in 2011, processed products have soared. A case in point is that of cocoa powder and cocoa butter exports.

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