RI'S CPO PRICE DOWN US$521 PER METRIC TON

Medan, July 27 (ANTARA) - The average price of Indonesia's crude palm oil exports in the first semester this year dropped US$521 per metric ton compared to the same period last year due to the global crisis, an industry spokesman said.

"The average price of Indonesian CPO exports in the first semester of 2009 is down to US$653 per metric ton after reaching US$1,174 in the same period last year," the treasurer of the North Sumatra chapter of the Association of Indonesia Palm Oil Producers (Gapki), Laksamana Adiyaksa, said here on Monday.

The deep fall in the export price is the result of the current global crisis that has made demand to drop to affect the price, he said.

He said exporters actually had already predicted the situation before and therefore they had objected to the government's plan to impose export duty on May moreover the announcement was made with a short time interval.

"The price in 2009 is predicted to remain far below the average price of 2008 which was US$984 per metric ton although it is also predicted to rise at the end of the year," Laksamana, who is also PT Asian Agri executive, said.

The hike will predictably happen because of a rise in demand as a year-end stock and also because of El Nino weather phenomenon, he said.

Although it will rise the hike will not be too high because the impact of the El Nino is predictably not too serious, he added.

The prediction that the hike will not be big has already been seen in the weakening price in July compared to the May and June prices that once reached US$791 and US$718 per metric ton respectively.

The deputy chairman of the North Sumatra chapter of Gapki, Rustam Honein, hoped the government would give relief to exporters so that the drop in the foreign exchange income from CPO in the first semester this year could be curbed.