Profitable: Excluding the forex gain, IOI said the underlying pre-tax profit in Q2 was up 76% year-onyear at RM649.2mil on a 3.9% higher revenue of RM2.97bil.
KUALA LUMPUR: Forecasts on the price of palm oil were mainly bullish today with industry players at a Roundtable on Palm Oil 2016: Challenges & Opportunities saying that demand is likely to rise over the next one year.
“Palm is the most productive oil today. We have been using a more productive way to manage palm oil in a more sustainable way. We are rather bullish as demand is rising and I believe 2016 will be a very good year for palm oil moving forward,” Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd’s group president and chief executive officer Datuk Emir Mavani Abdullah said.
On the supply side, United Plantations Bhd’s vice chairman and chief executive Datuk Carl Bek-Nielsen said that Indonesia, which is the world’s biggest producer of palm oil has seen a slowdown in production.
“This is due to the consequences of the drought - a very severe drought in 2015 and this is not very good for the supply side. Also, combined with that is the net annual growth in production area for oil palms area is slowing down because many big multinationals whom have signed on sustainability practices are not able to proceed as they had done in the past,” Carl said.
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