THE Indian government has asked the country’s palm oil sector to stop buying the commodity from Malaysia, following months of strained ties between the two countries over Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s criticism of the India’s internal affairs.

Sources told Reuters India has “unofficially” told its palm oil refiners and traders to refrain from buying Malaysia, which has been a critic of its actions in Kashmir and more recently, its new citizenship law giving precedence to non-Muslims.

Malaysia has also ignored numerous requests from India to extradite the Mumbai-born Muslim preacher Zakir Naik, who has been granted permanent residency.

A senior official in India’s vegetable oil industry, who asked to remain unnamed, told Reuters that the Indian government had called for a boycott of Malaysian goods at a meeting yesterday in New Delhi that was attended by two dozen vegetable oil industry officials.

“In Monday’s meeting we have been verbally told to avoid buying Malaysian palm oil,” the official said.

“We’ve had various rounds of meetings within the government and industry to see how we could reduce imports from Malaysia,” another Indian government official said.

A plan of action was yet to be firmed up and India was exploring its options, the official added.

India was the biggest buyer of Malaysian palm oil in 2018, importing 2.5 million tonnes of it, followed by China, which bought 1.86 million tonnes. Last year until September, India had imported nearly 4 million tonnes of the commodity from Malaysian, more than double the volume sold to the next biggest buyer, China, at 1.6 million tonnes.

Dr Mahathir had offended India in October when he accused it of invading and occupying Kashmir, a predominantly Muslim region also claimed by Pakistan.

As Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok rushed to soothe ruffled feathers amid rumblings of an Indian boycott of Malaysian goods, Dr Mahathir struck again in December – this time with comments about India’s new citizenship which he said discriminated against Muslims.

Kok today told Reuters that the government had not received a notice from India about stopping imports from Malaysia.

Malaysian Palm Oil Council CEO Kalyana Sundram said: “There are some discussions going on but until they officially announce, we don’t know whether it’s true.”

An Indian official said India had made it clear it wished to punish Malaysia for Dr Mahathir’s remarks and had asked for the traders’ support.

“The government has been struggling to find ways to restrict imports from Malaysia due to World Trade Organisation rules. For the time being it asked for industry co-operation,” he said.

India’s trade ministry did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment. – January 7, 2020.