Malaysia: Palm oil panic buying sparks new year fears

The Malaysian Government has been forced to make an emergency palm oil injection into supermarkets and food stores across the nation to break a wave of panic-buying after prices of cooking oil soared.

The crisis, which has emptied shops completely of cooking oil, has already prompted palm-oil rationing in a country that is one of the world’s largest producers of the highly sought-after commodity
The rush to buy up palm oil coincides with growing fears of cooking oil shortages before the Chinese New Year celebrations with giant banquets and a general rise in the consumption of fried food.

Inventories are already low: the ethnic diversity of Malaysia means that Christmas, the Islamic festival of Eid al-Fitr and the Hindu celebration of Diwali are all marked with equal vigour, with festivities centered chiefly on eating.

Refineries and palm-oil producers in Malaysia have been ordered to step up monthly output of subsidised oil to 70,000 tonnes in a near 30 per cent increase.

The run on cooking oil began on Monday, as traders in Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere in East Asia pushed the price of palm oil to record highs. It is currently trading at 3,166 ringgit (