Palm Oil Developments No.71 (December 2019) p33-40

Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) for Greater Compliance in an Increasingly Regulated Market

Noorazah Zolkarnain*, Siti Afida Ishak*, Asma Liyana Shaari*, Nur Azmina Roslan* and Razmah Ghazali*

Oil palm is the most important commodity crop in Malaysia while palm oil has become the most traded vegetable oil in the world. Exports of oil palm products in 2018 were recorded to be higher by 3.5% at 24.82 million tonnes compared to 23.97 million tonnes in 2017 (Kushairi et al., 2019). The industry has been recognised as one of the key economic growth drivers in creating job opportunities and new downstream businesses which bring in revenue for national development. In 2016, the agriculture sector contributed 8.1% or RM89.5 billion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with oil palm recognised as a major contributor (at 43.1%) to the agriculture sector (Nur Ain et al., 2018). The palm oil industry is divided into three major sectors, i.e. upstream, midstream and downstream. The upstream sector consists of the smallholdings and plantations, while the midstream sector covers milling and refining of palm oil and palm kernel oil. The downstream sector focuses more on further processing of the midstream’s palm oil products into intermediate or final products. The intermediates or final palm oil products derived from the midstream and downstream sectors are then channelled into food and non-food applications, either for household, industrial or commercial purposes.





Author information:
* Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB),
6 Persiaran Institusi, Bandar Baru Bangi,
43000 Kajang, Selangor, Malaysia.
E-mail: azah@mpob.gov.my