Effects of cooking oil subsidy removals on related markets in Malaysia: a comparative static, multi-commodity, multi stage production approach

Malaysia is contemplating removal of most of her subsidy support measures including subsidies on cooking oil which is largely palm oil based. This paper aims to examine the effects of cooking oil subsidy removals on the competitiveness of the oil palm subsector and related markets. This is done by developing and applying a comparative static, multi-commodity, partial equilibrium model with multi-stages of production function for the Malaysian perennial crops subsector which explicitly links different stages of production, primary and intermediate input markets, trade, and policy linkages. Results partly suggest that export of cooking oil will increase by 0.2 per cent due to a 10 per cent cooking oil subsidy reduction, while domestic output of cooking oil may eventually see a net decline of 1.97 per cent. The results clearly point out that the effect of reducing cooking oil subsidies is relatively small at the upstream levels and therefore it only induces minute effects on factor markets. Consequently, the market for other agricultural crops is projected to change very marginally