01/10/2015 (Jakarta Globe) - The government is keeping export tax on crude palm oil sales at 0 percent next month as weak global demand continues to push down CPO prices, according to a statement by the Trade Ministry on Tuesday.

In a statement that was received by the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday, the ministry recently pegged the reference price for crude palm oil products at $529.51 per metric ton for October, which is a 13 percent decline from $610.65 per metric ton in September.

"The reference price for CPO currently is still below the threshold of $750 so CPO products and its derivatives will still be subject to zero percent export tax in October," Karyanto Suprih, the ministry's acting director general of international trade, said in a statement.

He explained that the decline in prices was due to the slump in commodity prices around the world, dragged down by low natural gas prices and an oversupply of non-CPO vegetable oil products globally.

Since the reference price is still below $750 per metric ton, exporters will be subject to the government's newly-implemented palm oil levy that was effective as of July this year.

Meanwhile, the reference price of cocoa beans in Indonesia rose 0.56 percent to $3,175.92 per metric ton on the back of the global upward trend of prices for the commodity, bringing up the reference export price of cocoa beans to $2,872 per metric ton..