The government today hit back at allegations that its palm oil industry kills orang-utans by clearing forests, saying it was a "malicious" smear campaign by competitors in the developed world.

"Non-governmental organisations are spreading malicious rumours that our oil palm plantations are killing the orang-utans as a result of the clearing of forested land for oil palm conversions," Primary Industries Minister Lim Keng Yaik said.

"Hidden behind this action is the real agenda of 'trade' competitiveness," he told an international planters conference here.

"Being uncompetitive, compared to products from developing countries, developed countries are erecting all forms of barriers that they can think of," he said.

Lim said the campaign over the large red-haired apes, which are native to Malaysia's eastern states on Borneo island, emerged after Malaysia and Indonesia tripled their exports to the European Union, from one million tonnes to 3.5 million.

Developed countries who produced oils and fat competing with palm oil had cleared their own forests and were now dictating through environmental organisations what developing countries should do, he said.

Half of global output

He argued that Malaysia's natural forest covered 62 percent of the country and if the plantation crops of rubber, oil palm and cocoa were included, the cover was 76 percent, "which is phenomenal by any standard".

"This figure when compared to the developed countries - United States 24.7 percent, United Kingdom 11.6 percent, Netherlands 11.1 percent and Germany 30.7 percent - can be likened to a comparison between David and Goliath," he said.

"For that matter now, Brazil is removing a lot of their Amazonian forest to plant soyabean. They don't attack soyabean for fear of affecting the US, affecting their own," Lim told a news conference.

Malaysia is the world's largest palm oil producer, accounting for about half of global output.

The country produced 11.9 million tonnes last year, of which 10.8 million tonnes were exported.

Lim said Malaysia aimed to double its productivity to produce eight tonnes of palm oil per hectare (2.47 acres) within 10-15 years, up from the current average of 3.8 tonnes.

"We have to be very competitive to compete with the other oils. We can lower costs and boost productivity with new clones and better agronomic practices," he said.

Nearly 1,000 participants from 10 countries are attending the two-day conference. - AFP