KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29: Malaysian crude palm oil futures ended 1.4 per cent lower on Wednesday as prices of rival soyabean oil declined and players anticipated only a small rise in Indonesia’s export tax, traders said.

The benchmark November contract on the Bursa alaysia Derivatives Exchange settled down 34 ringgit, or 1.4 per cent, to 2,378 ringgit ($679) per ton.

The cooking oil subsidy is really weighing on the market as the export tax rise will not be significant now, a leading trader said. Also, soyaoil’s fall in Asian trade is not helping our market much.

Other traded months fell between 27 and 39 ringgit in overall volume of 9,503 lots of 25 tons each.

Indonesia has allocated 325 billion rupiah ($34.66 million) this year to subsidise cooking oil prices sold to the poor, Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said on Tuesday.

The Southeast Asian nation also plans to scrap a 10 per cent value-added tax on crude palm oil sold to cooking oil processors and peg a tax on palm oil exports to global prices to ease local cooking oil prices, Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono said on Wednesday.—Reuters