JAKARTA: Malaysian palm oil futures edged up on Friday as traders closed short positions before the weekend, but gains were capped by a strengthening ringgit.

“The rise is because of short-covering before the weekend,” said a trader with a foreign commodities brokerage in Kuala Lumpur.

The benchmark July contract on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange rose 0.09 per cent to 2,148 ringgit ($593) a tonne, with weekly gains of 0.94pc.

Total traded volume stood at 34,999 lots of 25 tonnes, just below the usual 35,000 lots.

A strong ringgit can reduce demand by making palm effectively more expensive for overseas buyers.

In other news in palm, Indonesia’s exports of palm and palm kernel oils for March rose 14pc to their highest since November 2014 at 2.03 million tonnes, an industry body said on Friday.

Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2015

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