JAKARTA — The Indonesian palm oil exports set an all-time record, reaching US$3.06 billion or around Rp44 trillion (Rp14,000 per US dollar) in May 2021.
The Indonesian Palm Oil Association (Gapki) Executive Director Mukti Sardjono said that the exports in May was the highest-ever monthly exports during the history of Indonesian palm oil trading. The huge achievement was supported by the very high prices of palm oil at the average of US$1,241 per ton cif Roterdam during May 2021, which was the highest monthly average price during the last 10 years.
“The palm oil exports’ value reached 18.5 percent of the total national monthly exports in May at US$16.60 billion, enabling the trade balance to reach a monthly surplus at more than US$2.37 billion,” Mukti said in a press release on Tuesday, 27 July 2021.
He pointed out that the increase of the export value was also supported by the increase of export volume to 2.952 million tons or an increase of 12 percent from the previous month. The largest export increase was seen in the processed CPO products by 432,000 tons to 2.31 million tons and processed PKO products by 31,000 tons to 119,000 tons. The exports of CPO and crude PKO dropped by 119,000 tons or around 40 percent.
Based on Gapki data, in terms of country destination, the largest export increase was seen to Pakistan by 138,000 tons to 265,500 tons, to Africa (excluded Egypt) by 103,600 tons to 243,200 tons, to Middle East (excluded Egypt) by 75,100 tons to 154,720 tons. The palm oil exports to Egypt dropped by 15,800 tons to 77,000 tons. The biggest drop was seen to China by 157,600 tons to 467,300 tons and to India by 83,700 tons to 213,900 tons.
Domestic consumption increased by 55,000 tons to 1.645 million tons or 3.5 percent. “The consumption for foods rose by 2.8 percent to 842,000 tons as compared to previous month, for oleo-chemical increased by 8.6 percent to 176,000 tons and for biodiesel dropped by 0.32 percent to 627,000 tons,” said Mukti.
He further said that the palm oil production in May reached 4.354 million tons, consisting of CPO at 3.966 million tons and PKO at 388,000 tons. That means the total increase of CPO and PKO production was 257,000 tons or an increase of 6.0 percent if compared to the production in April at 4.097 million tons.
According to Mukti, the production increase was lower than the increase of exports and local consumption at 353,000 tons, causing the stock in May to drop to 2.884 million tons. “The low stock of palm oil and other main vegetable oils became one of the factors causing the high prices of vegetable oils,” he said. (*)
Source: kumparan.com | Featured image via indonesia-investments.com
