AFTER more than two years since the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) imposed an import ban on FGV Holdings Bhd, the group aims to get it lifted as early as the end of the year.

Group CEO Datuk Nazrul Mansor says the company is targeting to submit its petition to the US CBP by June this year with all the measures it has in place to address the gaps identified by its audit firm.

“The latest right now is that our auditors are doing a verification where they will verify all the gaps that were identified earlier. Once the verification is completed, they will write a report and will let us know if there are still gaps.

“From there, we will send a petition to the US CBP, which we are targeting to lodge in June…

FGV, one of the world’s largest crude palm oil (CPO) producers, was banned by the US CBP in 2020 due to allegations of forced labour on its estates. The company then engaged an audit firm to review the labour conditions…

About eight Malaysian companies have been slapped with withhold release orders (WRO) by the US CBP in the past two years due to allegations that they used forced labour. These companies are mainly manufacturers of rubber gloves and palm oil products…