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Indonesia drafting regulation for domestic palm oil supplies
calendar18-07-2007 | linkXinchua | Share This Post:

16/7/07 (Xinchua)  - The Indonesian government is drafting a regulation to ensure domestic supplies of crude palm oil (CPO) following cooking oil shortage that caused price to soar in recent months, local press said Monday.

According to the draft, the government obliges all producers to supply up to 3.3 million tons of CPO to domestic markets a year, reported leading economic daily Bisnis Indonesia.

Indonesia, which has targeted to surpass Malaysia as the world's largest CPO supplier by 2008, has been hit by cooking oil shortage in domestic markets in recent months.

The CPO pricing at distributor level will lies in the hand of the Trade Ministry with reference to the international price, according to the draft.

"But domestic price will be lower because it's not liable to the 6.5 percent export tax," said Chairul Rachman, a senior official with the Agriculture Ministry who joins a special team tasked with drafting the regulation.

The Indonesian government has projected CPO production to increase by 7.8 percent to 17.44 million tons this year from 2006.

Indonesia is aiming to grab 44.4 percent of global CPO market share to surpass Malaysia. Both Southeast Asian countries currently control more than 80 percent of global CPO supplies.