January 18, 2003	Saturday	Ziqa'ad 14, 1423

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 17: Malaysia’s palm oil futures closed lower in thin trading on Friday as players stayed on the sidelines, waiting for next week’s crop data.

The benchmark third-month April contract was down eight ringgit at 1,619 ringgit ($426.05) a ton after trading a low as 1,612 ringgit.

Volume was slow at 2,687 lots compared with 11,613 lots on Thursday.

Cargo surveyors ITS and SGS are scheduled to release export data on Monday covering January 1-20.

In a previous estimate, Wong put January output at 870,000-875,000 tons, down from the official 922,325 tons in December.

Indonesia, the world’s second largest palm oil producer after Malaysia, also exported around 675 thousand tons of palm kernel oil and its derivative products last year.

Deals were reported at 1,640 a ton for central.—Reuters