INDIA’S trade minister will not meet with Trade and Industry Minister Darell Leiking at Davos this week to resolve the spat over New Delhi’s “soft ban” of processed palm oil (PPO), reports Reuters.

A spokesman for Piyush Goyal blames his “tight schedule” for declining to meet Leiking at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, said the report.

India, Malaysia’s top palm oil export market, placed restrictions on the commodity’s imports following Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s criticism of Indian government policies on Kashmir and its contentious citizenship law.

The Indian authorities are also upset with Putrajaya over its refusal to extradite preacher Zakir Naik, who is wanted in his home country on terrorism and money-laundering charges.

India recently increased its local tax on imported refined palm oil (PPO) to 45% while the tax on crude palm oil (CPO) remains at 37.5%.

New Dehli also reclassified PPO as “restricted” from “free” in its import rules.

In 2019, Malaysia exported about 4.4 million tonnes of palm oil products to India.

Reuters reported a Malaysian government spokesman as saying trade ministers from India and Malaysia could meet on the sidelines in Davos.

But an Indian trade ministry official told Reuters “there’s no meeting between the Malaysian minister and the Indian trade minister at Davos”.

The spat between India and Malaysia dragged benchmark palm futures to their biggest weekly decline in more than 11 years on Friday.

Meanwhile, Bernama quoted Leiking as saying there was never a plan for a formal meeting between Malaysian and Indian officials to discuss palm oil issues at the Davos summit.

However, he did not discount the possibility of an “encounter” with Indian officials at the event, leading to talks on matters of common interest.

“There were never any plans to meet anyone in particular, but along the way, we would bump into each other, and I’m sure a ‘hello’ always starts with something good,” he said in Kuala Lumpur today. – January 20, 2020.