Subsidised cooking oil quota to remain at 60k tonnes a month

The 60,000-tonne quota for subsidised cooking oil remains for now, said the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Cost of Living today.

It added that it has no plans to reduce the existing quota, which has been in place since 2016, to 40,000 tonnes per month.

“This is because the 60,000-tonne quota, which is equivalent to 60 million packs of subsidised cooking oil weighing one kilogramme each, is sufficient if used by households only,” it said in an explanation regarding reports that the quota of subsidised cooking oil may be reduced to 40,000 tonnes a month.

The ministry’s secretary-general Azman Mohd Yusof reportedly said yesterday that he did not rule out the possibility of subsidised cooking oil being reduced to 40,000 tonnes a month due to views that 60,000 tonnes was too much.

The 60,000-tonne quota for subsidised cooking oil has been in place since 2016 after the ministry took over the supply of daily necessities from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board.

The ministry said although there were frequent incidents of insufficient subsidised cooking oil in certain areas, the ministry found that the situation was influenced by various other factors, including purchases by non-households, the opening of business sectors using cooking oil in their business operations, packaging companies not operating at optimum level and distribution problems.

- Bernama