BUTTERWORTH: Manufacturers and exporters should use treated wooden pallets to ship their goods or risk having the goods rejected.

The Agriculture Department’s crop protection and plant quarantine division assistant director Wan Normah Wan Ismail said many developed nations, including the European Union, had already imposed this requirement.

She said exporters had been told to follow the International Standards for Phytosanitary (plant health) Measures (ISPM) introduced last year.

She said Malaysia would impose the requirement next year.

“Local manufacturers and exporters must abide by it or lose out to our rivals,” she said when briefing manufacturers here yesterday.

Wan Normah said untreated wooden pallets would be the perfect host for pests, especially the Asian long-horned beetle and pinewood nematode.

The implementation of the ISPM, she added, was to eliminate the spread of pests to protect the timber industry and agriculture.

“Wooden pallets can be treated either through heat or fumigation and the department has so far registered 30 companies to do the fumigation work,” she said.

Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers northern region branch vice-chairman Muhammad Ismail said the cost of wooden pallets had increased from between RM16 and RM25 each to RM48 each because of the treatment process.