Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - The commodities ministry reported on Tuesday that Malaysia is losing roughly 57,880 tonnes of palm oil f...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - The commodities ministry reported on Tuesday that Malaysia is losing roughly 57,880 tonnes of palm oil fruit every day as a result of a severe labour shortage, which has cost the world's second-largest producer more than $2 billion in the first five months of the year.
Throughout the epidemic, the country of Southeast Asia has struggled with rising labour shortages, and efforts to import migrant workers from Indonesia and Bangladesh have failed due to discussions about worker protection policies.
Although the nation's borders have reopened, minister Zuraida Kamaruddin informed parliament that the inflow of foreign labour into the palm oil industry has not yet fully recovered.
In spite of a global shortage of edible oil, migrant workers make up more than 75% of the workforce in plantation estates. Staff shortages have slowed Malaysia's output of palm oil.
Around 54,190 fewer people were needed on average by planters from January to May, and approximately 29,000 of these workers, or more than 50% of the total, were in charge of performing the crucial harvesting and collection operation, according to Zuraida.
Her projections were lower than those of organisations representing the plantation industry, which recently said they were lacking as many as 120,000 people.
According to figures made by the ministry, 1.5 million tonnes of palm fruit, or 57,880 tonnes per day, went unharvested, according to Zuraida.
As a result, from January to May, Malaysia lost 7.52 million tonnes of fruit used to make palm oil, worth 10.46 billion ringgit ($2.35 billion), according to Zuraida.
4.4550 ringgit to the dollar
