Backed by Jakarta's waiver of palm oil export levies, which was recently extended to Oct. 31 and reversed course from an export ban in May that had shut them out of global trade, producers are moving in to lighten up their stocks at tempting prices.
The drawdown will also get some help, he said, from a slowdown in production now that the peak harvest period has passed. Producers in Malaysia, the second-largest palm oil producer, along with rival oils like soyoil and sunoil, rushed in to grab Indonesia's market share. The Indonesian government ended up scrapping the ban, and in mid-July also began waiving export levies that had been used to fund biodiesel and replanting programmes, growing more worried instead about bulging palm oil stocks and beleaguered palm farmers.
And Indonesian producers are taking back business from their Malaysian neighbours with aggressive discounting.
BoycottPalmOil
So why ban the export