• How big is the UAE palm oil market?
  • The UAE palm oil market size was valued at USD 183.3 million in 2015. Increasing demand from the food & cosmetics sector is expected to drive product demand in the future. The product finds application across various end-use industries that include food & beverages, animal feed, lubricants, and renewable fuels among others.
  • How has palm oil production changed over the last decade?
  • production has grown consistently over the last decade: its CAGR of 5.2% from 2008 to 2019 rose to 5.3% from 2014 to 2019. More than 60% of palm oil production was exported in 2020, providing an important source of foreign exchange revenue for exporting countries.
  • Should palm oil be sold on the domestic market?
  • As a result, local producers have more favourable conditions to sell palm oil on the domestic market, as those who sell to the export market and receive higher prices must pay a fee to the fund while those selling exclusively to the domestic market receive compensation (Brounen et al., 2021; Fedepalma, 2021).
  • Is palm oil a commodity?
  • The story of palm oil is less about it as an isolated commodity and more about the rising demand for vegetable oils. Palm oil is a very productive crop; as we will see later, it produces over a third of the world¡¯s oil but uses less than a tenth of croplands devoted to oil production. It has, therefore, been a natural choice to meet this demand.
  • How do palm oil prices intersect with sustainability?
  • Therefore, examining how palm oil prices intersect with the sector¡¯s sustainability is paramount. As with other commodity markets, palm oil prices are largely correlated with shifts in supply and demand and with price movements of competing products, such as other vegetable oils (e.g., sunflower and soybean oil) or biodiesel.
  • Does palm oil trade affect ecosystem services?
  • The direct (socio-economic) and indirect (through ecosystem services) impacts of palm oil trade were reviewed using peer-reviewed literature and the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJA). Our results show that most of the 57 case studies were conducted in Indonesia and Malaysia where 85% of global production of palm oil occurs.