BANGKOK, Oct 31: Malaysia’s crude palm oil futures ended firmer on Monday on short covering, but it could be under pressure when it re-opens on Wednesday after India decided to raise the base import prices of palm oils, dealers said.

The market will be closed on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday for the Diwali and Eid al-Fitr Festivals.

India, the world’s leading edible oil importer, raised y raised base import prices of palm oils marginally on Monday and cut the base price of soyaoil slightly.

The base import price of crude palm oil, imported mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia, was raised to $434 a ton from $426, making it $8 a ton more expensive to import crude palm oil into India.

The news is expected to have a minimum impact on the market. The market is expected to open slightly lower on Wednesday, said one Malaysian dealer in Kuala Lumpur.

India buys nearly half its annual needs of around 11 million tons in the form of palm oils from Malaysia and Indonesia and soft oils from Argentina and Brazil.

It fixes base prices to prevent importers from under-invoicing the products and paying lower taxes.

The benchmark third-month contract, January, ended up 14 ringgit at 1,445 ringgit a ton ($390.5) on Monday.

Today, the market was quite firm, exports are quite good. There was a bit of short covering during the last hour, said one dealer.

Other traded months settled up 8 to 14 ringgit.

Overall volume was 2,531 lots of 25 tons each, compared with 1,581 lots on Friday.

Dealers said cargo surveyor Societe Generale de Surveillance’s estimate of a 2.5 per cent growth in Malaysian palm oil exports for October excited the market.

Exports figures are supportive. This is friendly above expectations, said another dealer. SGS, the main independent tracker of Malaysian palm oil shipments, estimates Malaysian exports of oil palm products for October to have risen 2.5 per cent to 1,239,339 tons from the 1,209,350 tons tracked for September. —Reuters