Malaysia to move palm oil business head office to Nairobi

Malaysia will be moving its palm oil business headquarters from South Africa to Kenya as the country looks to position Nairobi as its base for re-exports to the rest of the Sub-Saharan region.

The move is also in line with Malaysia’s grand plan to shift part of its processing to Nairobi as well as expanding its plantation.

The country now has 5.47 million hectares of palm trees. The country’s Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities YB Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani said the Asian nation no longer has available land that can be used to expand its plantations.

This has been influenced as well by the European Union Deforestation Regulations (EUDR) that restrict exports of products to the EU market which are linked to cutting down of trees. As such, for Malaysia, which is the world’s second largest producer of palm oil products after Indonesia, Kenya comes in handy as business partner considering it imports a majority of these products from the country.

Ghani said the decision to move the headquarters to Nairobi is also influenced by the fact that the Malaysian Embassy for the East African Community (EAC) is located in Nairobi.

Malaysia manages its palm oil business through the Malaysia Palm Oil Council (MPOC), whose sub-Saharan headquarters are currently located in Johannesburg, South Africa.

During his visit to Nairobi last week, Ghani said relocating the offices will ease re-exports of the products to the rest of the seven EAC countries.

“We are bringing the whole team of facilitators of the industry to Nairobi. It means all industry players involved in palm oil, right from food to non-food related like cosmetics, soap and chemicals, if they have any ="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/business/article/2001501405/how-govt-lost-sh62b-in-edible-oils-scandal">issue in terms of supply<, quality or standard, you can always come to our office here,” said Mr Ghani.

Kenya is Malaysia’s top importer of palm oil products, having shipped in 1.3 million tonnes in 2024, a growth from 0.9 million tonnes in 2023. Tanzania comes in second, followed by Mozambique, Nigeria and Togo. These figures are according to MPOC.

Between January and February this year, Kenya imported 203,513 tonnes of palm oil products from Malaysia compared to 156,150 tonnes in the same period last year. Crude palm oil, at 57 per cent, is the most sought palm oil product from Malaysia imported to Kenya.

A majority of these products are however meant for re-exports especially to Uganda as detailed in the 2025 Economic Survey by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS). Imports from Malaysia in 2024 increased to Sh135.9 billion from Sh120.5 billion in 2023.

“Asia remained the dominant source market for Kenya, accounting for 66.4 per cent of the country’s total import expenditure in the period under review. The growth was largely driven by increased imports from China (25.5 per cent), Malaysia (12.8 per cent), Pakistan (75.3 per cent) and Oman, which more than doubled,” the report says.

“This growth resulted from increased importation of machinery and transport equipment from China, rice from Pakistan, crude palm oil from Malaysia and kerosene-type jet fuel from Oman.” Mr Ghani said over the years, Malaysia has noted increased demand for palm oil products from Kenya, hence the need to deepen business relations with local industry players.

“We will continue to support your industry players not only to process and distribute in Kenya, but also if they want to export, we would like to use Kenya as a hub,” he said.

The minister noted that Malaysia will support whichever direction Kenya decides to take when it comes to ="https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/business/the-standard/article/2001480029/state-mulls-palm-tree-farming-to-tame-cooking-oil-prices">expanding palm oil sector< whether it is through planting of the trees or expanding processing.

“If Kenya wants to focus on planting palm oil trees or they want to go upstream instead of downstream, we are willing to support. We can bring some of the people interested in planting palm oil trees to visit our country. We can share seedlings with farmers,” he said.