Much Ado About Something: The India-Malaysia Palm Kerfuffle

Khor Reports is back after a two-week break (happy belated new year everyone!). As a mental warm up for things to come, we dove into the issue which dominated the local palm oil scene in the last few months of 2019—the trade spat between India and one of its largest palm oil exporter, Malaysia.

Here’s our post on the sticky situation, broken down into eight points—all about the palm oil trade between Malaysia and India, including online-social media reading in India. Click here to read the full post!

Smoke Gets in My Eyes: The Case of Air Pollution in Cinta Sayang

Something is going on in Cinta Sayang. Apparently, the Air Pollutant Index (API) on the PM2.5 scale registered a 395 reading on the morning of 28 June 2019 on a local resident’s handheld air quality monitoring device; in contrast, official data shows a 67 reading in Sungai Petani. Our curiosity piqued, we’ve come up with a preliminary review on the matter.

Click here to read the full post on the smoky matter.

Knives Out? A Nibble on Food and Diet Habits

We became curious about the seemingly rising trend of diets and food consumption, in light of the growing public concern about personal health and more. With the help of 100 Khor Reports network and friends, we managed to tease out a picture on the current dietary habits and snooped around a little for views from young professionals.

Click here to read our findings!

End-2019 Catch Ups

Year end is quite the time to catch up! Over the last 10 days or so... #KhorReports mini open house, a #palmweekly meet up, book Year end is quite the time to catch up! Over the last 10 days or so... #KhorReports mini open house today, a #palmweekly meet up, book launch of Prof Hong Hai's "The Rule of Culture, Corporate and State #Governance in China and East Asia", social listening data with Danni, interview spot with Melissa at Channel News Asia, and a soap making intro session by Angeline (trimming soap bars this afternoon, and calculating the mixture with #palmoil, #oliveoil, #coconutoil, #castoroil a few days ago). of Prof Hong Hai's "The Rule of Culture, Corporate and State #Governance in China and East Asia", social listening data with Danni, interview spot with Melissa at Channel News Asia, and a soap making intro session by Angeline (trimming soap bars, and calculating the mixture with #palmoil, #oliveoil, #coconutoil, #castoroil a few days ago).

Recent meet ups

Mini Open House in KL, 11 Dec 2019!

Our 1st Khor Reports open session is in Kuala Lumpur. Next week, Wed 11th Dec at 2-5pm for up to 6 pax (please email yuleng@segi-enam.com to sign up; and if this is full, you'll be alerted to future dates).

This is an intro to our economics and policy research, largely on trade and environmental topics. Priority for grad students and young professionals.

Feature topics - Haze crisis of southern ASEAN, Malaysia durian and China trade hopes, waste plastics & incineration - a billion dollar business, land reclamation & flood risks, and the boba (& sugar) boom.

How Do You See Plant-based and Other Diets?

Please share your view on #diets including #plantbased etc.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe_bqT4tcgiSPOQURVomn-rlK2FYkr1CgbeWsIWaW-KSJrkxg/viewform

Malaysia Palm Oil: Planted Area Growth and Limiting It

We are hearing from the market that some feel that the proposed Malaysia "limit" to oil palm area is a signal for expansion! The area limit (first mooted at a lower level, then raised) has been suggested as a measure to improve the image of Malaysian palm oil against foreign accusations of deforestation. At the same time, it may ease palm's supply glut (resulting from rapid expansion when palm prices were buoyed in the biofuels boom). 

Some figures may explain this alleged “pro expansion” mood. 6.5 million hectares is significantly higher than the current licensed area; and the implied pace of expansion would be 130,000 hectares per year for a push to the limit by 2023 (the “target” year mooted by the government, see red line in chart). This is a significantly faster pace than recent growth in hectarage (blue line) of 69,000 hectares per year in the recent 3 years.

But if there is an upward revision of planted area, of say 5%, the pace of expansion to reach the limit could be 80,000 hectares per year (yellow line; not so far off the recent 3-year average change).

How would the area expansion be distributed? Or perhaps 2023 is not a “target” year and upstream industry players are quite mistaken in interpreting it this way.

Read more at Palm Weekly!

BFM: Sunny Skies for Palm Oil with Khor Yu Leng

Last week, BFM invited Segi Enam Advisors principal, Khor Yu Leng, to give her views on the future of Malaysian and Indonesian biodiesel policies following the recent hike in crude palm oil (CPO) prices. Click here for the link to the podcast.

“With CPO prices hitting a 22 month high of RM2500, we ask why and when output has been on a rise. Khor Yu Leng, independent political economist with Segi Enam Advisors tells us that the biodiesel policy of both Indonesia and Malaysia have a role to play in this recent price rally.

Presented by: Lyn Mak, Wong Shou Ning, Roshan Kanesan.”

Boba Boom: The Rise of the Boba and the Sugar Strikes Back

In a brief moment of levity, Khor Reports has decided to (finally) hop on the boba bandwagon and find out what the hype’s about. After a bit of internet trawling, we now have a dashboard of selected boba brands across Malaysia and a bit of market information on the popular drink.

Being the wet blanket as we are though, we decided to also add in information about sugar consumption and how the boba faze might not help health-wise in the long run. (We’re sorry, we care too much to ignore this.)

Click here to read the full post!

Khor Reports' Talking Series: Malaysia Renewable Energy

The Pakatan Harapan government has announced plans to achieve its target share of 20% renewable energy mix in the nation’s electricity supply by prioritising solar-PV. The question: is this really a viable move? Khor Reports spoke to Ir. Krishna Moorthy of MECC Engineering Sdn Bhd to find out.

This is the first of Khor Reports’ Talking Series, featuring the topic of renewable energy in Malaysia. Click here to read the full post.