Malaysia proposes joint research with EU

Malaysia announced plans to propose a joint research project with the European Union (EU) to formulate standards for producing palm oil-based biofuel. By jointly studying the life cycle of oil palms with the EU, the Malaysian government said it hopes to achieve a consensus with the EU on palm oil standards. The EU has set targets for use of 10% renewable energy for the transport industry by 2020. By meeting these standards, Malaysia can hope to tap into an expected yearly market for at least 23 million metric tons of biofuel. Meanwhile, the Asiatic Centre for Genome Technology Sdn Bhd (ACGT) and Synthetic Genomics Inc. (SGI) released in late May the first draft of the oil palm gene sequence, which consists of around 1.8 billion base pairs, the building blocks of DNA. SGI and ACGT will continue to do additional sequencing and analysis for the finalization of their reference oil palm genome. The mapping of the oil palm’s genetic code, the Malaysian government said, will help in the development of hybrid plants which may help the country achieve its goal to yield 30 tons of fresh fruit bunches per hectare by 2020. (May 4/15/27, 2009)