KUALA LUMPUR: Crude palm oil futures on Bursa Malaysia Derivatives are expected to hover between RM2,200 and RM2,300 per tonne this week amid positive export data, a trader said.

Interband group senior palm oil trader Jim Teh said Malaysia’s export data for the first 25 days of April was very convincing and it would help to ease the high inventory. Despite China considering reducing its purchase due to the country’s rising inventory, we still managed to record higher exports supported by demand from India, Europe and the United States, he told. He said investors hoped that the healthy export numbers and near-stagnant production would help cut stockpiles in Malaysia.

Last Thursday, cargo surveyor intertek testing services announced that Malaysia’s palm oil product exports in the first 25 days of this month rose by 5.2% to 1.123 million tonnes from a month ago.

On a Friday-to-Friday basis, May 2013 improved RM18 to RM2,301 per tonne, June 2013 increased RM41 to RM2,335, July 2013 gained RM20 to RM2,316 and August 2013 rose RM1 to RM2,300.

Weekly turnover decreased to 126,768 lots from 177,106 lots while open interest rose to 178,250 contracts from 175,289 contracts previous Friday. Bernama

Source : The Star