KUCHING (Sarawak, Malaysia), Sept 23 (Bernama) — Malaysia will further boost cooperation with major pepper-producing countries in a bid to raise the commodity’s price from the current US$1.93 (RM8, US$1 = RM4.13) a kilogramme, Plantation Industries and Commodities Deputy Minister Willie Mongin said Tuesday.
He said Vietnam is the largest pepper producer in the world followed by Brazil, Indonesia and India, while Malaysia is the fifth largest ahead of Cambodia and Sri Lanka in sixth and seventh positions respectively.
“We have a target to raise the pepper price to at least RM10 a kilogramme, but this effort should be done by all producer countries and not just Malaysia,” he said after closing the 2020 Pepper Agropreneur Development Workshop here.
He said the refusal of the world’s second largest producer Brazil to join the International Pepper Community (IPC) is one of the factors leading to the current low prices, pointing out that Malaysia consults other IPC member countries on regulating production in order to get higher global market prices for the commodity.
He said there are currently 30,000 pepper smallholders in Malaysia with a cultivation area of 7,000 hectares which produced 34,000 tonnes of pepper last year, with Sarawak accounting for 98 per cent of total production.
He added that the smallholders have already produced 30,000 tonnes so far this year, compared with his ministry’s target of 40,000 tonnes for the whole year.
— BERNAMA