March 10, 2007	Saturday	Safar 20, 1428

KUALA LUMPUR, March 9: Malaysian crude palm oil futures closed largely unchanged on Friday as traders looked to a conference of industry experts next week for price forecasts.

The market jumped 1.6 per cent on Thursday, boosted by firm soyoil and hopes of a bullish forecast from the meeting. It is just 4.7 per cent below an eight-year high of 2,062 ringgit reached in December, when floods disrupted deliveries.

Other contracts were either marginally up, down or unchanged. Overall volume was down at 5,286 lots of 25 tons each, compared with around 12,000 lots traded on a routine day.

The state-run Malaysian Palm Oil Board will release February exports, output and stocks data on Monday. On the same day, cargo surveyors will unveil export numbers for March 1 to 10.

In Malaysia's physical market, crude palm oil for March shipment for southern region was quoted at 1,970/1,975 ringgit per ton.

Exports of Malaysian palm oil products for Feb. 1-28 fell 10.1 per cent to 856,192 tons from 952,753 tons shipped between Jan. 1 and 31, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services said.—Reuters