Malaysia’s export of agricultural products to the European Union (EU) market will be subjected to a new rule after the European Parliament voted in favour of a pesticides regulation last month.
The regulation is aimed at protecting human health and the environment from dangerous or excessive pesticide use in agriculture production, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) said Friday.
"This legislation is expected to be adopted by the EU council and enter into force in 2009," the ministry said, adding that the new legislation is planned to supercede existing EU law gradually.
MITI said in a statement that the local agricultural industry needed to be more stringent on the use of pesticides to ensure that no banned chemicals are used.
It said the detectable level of pesticide residues must not beyond the general default maximum residue level (MRL) of 0.01 mg/kg and might affect other processed products utilising raw materials sourced from farms.
"This new legislation highlights the EU’s increasing shift away from scientific risk-based assessment of chemicals substances to hazard-based criteria for granting market authorisation," the ministry said.
During the January to November 2008 period, Malaysia’s exports of agricultural products to European countries rose 12 percent to RM9.13 billion in 2008.
The main exports items in this category were palm oil, valued at RM5.01 billion, crude rubber (RM2.54 billion), saw logs and sawn timber (RM1.07 billion), seafood, fresh, chilled or frozen (RM254.8 million) and other vegetable oil (RM122.9 million).
However, imports of agricultural products from European countries declined in the January to November 2008 period by 14.9 percent to RM357.1 million.
Major import items were live animals and meat, valued at RM110.8 million, vegetables, roots and tubers (RM53.8 million), other vegetable oil (RM32.1 million), saw logs and sawn timber (RM24 million), and seafood, fresh, chilled or frozen (RM15.9 million.
