12/02/2002 (The Star) - Malaysian palm oil exports outlook for theremaining part of 2002 and 2003 is likely to improve, possibly by morethan 30%, due to anticipated acute shortages in the world's vegetable oilssupply during 2003. During 2001, palm oil exports increased by 16.7% to10.6 M tonnes compared to 9.08 M tonnes in 2000. The strong growthpotential in palm oil earnings is mainly due to the current steady rise inthe price of crude palm oil (CPO) now trading above Ringgit 1500/tonneagainst the average CPO price of Ringgit 894/tonne in 2001.According to the Economic Report 2002/2003, the targeted export earningsfrom both crude and processed palm oil is to increase by 35.5% to Ringgit13.56 bn for 2002 (Ringgit 10 bn in 2001). Plantation analysts still havepositive outlook for palm oil exports despite India's move to revise itsbase import price for different types of palm oil. India, which isMalaysia's largest palm oil importer, imported 1.4 M tonnes of palm oilfrom Malaysia, accounting for 15% of total palm oil exported during thefirst nine months of 2002.