MALAYSIAN Palm Oil Board’s (MPOB) e-registration system, which went “live”early this month, has captured about 30% of the total daily tradecontracts registered with the board.An electronic submission platform which incorporates a standardisedweb-based form, e-registration enables MPOB licensees to register theirdaily contracts online, a practice stipulated under Section 78(g) of theMPOB Act 1998.“Under the Palm Oil Industry (Registration of Contracts) Regulations ofMPOB, the licensees used to send in their contracts by telex, facsimile,e-mail or telephone,’’ said R Venugopal, director of the Economics andIndustry Development Division, MPOB.“With e-registration, they can register their contracts simply bytransferring the information from their databases to our system and withthe templates available, this can be done faster and more accurately,’’ hetold Star Business in an interview at the 2001 International Palm OilCongress in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.Venugopal is one of three contributors to the e-registration In the PalmOil Trade paper, presented by Jamil Nordin, also from MPOB, at thecongress.Venugopal said the implementation of the system was timely as itencompassed error-detection measures and other innovations to ensure fastand accurate registration of contracts, was more economical and helpedbridge the gap between other forms of contract registration.A key feature of the system, he added, was the derivation of the daily(and monthly) MPOB average palm oil prices used by traders as a benchmarkwhile the monthly prices are used as a basis for price settlement forlong-term supply contracts, for pricing fresh fruit bunches (FFB) and bythe government for formulating industry policies.Thursday, August 23, 2001The Star