REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, PALEMBANG -- The price of crude palm oil (CPO) in South Sumatra fell slightly to Rp8,600 per kilogram this week from Rp8,719 per kg last week.

The official price was set at a routine meeting between the regional plantation office and major palm oil producers in the province.

Head of the processing and marketing division of the plantation office Benyamin said the price was set to follow the price developments in international as part of the province's CPO production is exported.

Based on the data at the regional plantation office the price of CPO in the province was not stable over the past month, Benyamin said here on Wednesday

CPO is produced by a number of oil palm plantation companies, which together have around 600,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in various areas in the province.

Among the operators of major oil palm plantations in the region are PT Tania Selatan in the regency of Ogan Komering Ilir, PT Mitra Ogan and PT Minangan Ogan both in the regency of Ogan Komering Ulu.

Most of the plantation have been productive but there are some that are no longer productive for being too old.

Replanting, therefore, is taking place in some of the plantations, Benyamin said.

There are also small farms or individually owned oil palm plantations up to 25 hectares in width, he said.

He said the new price was determined on January 10 and a new price decision would be announced at the next price meeting on January 20 2014.

Meanwhile, the regional office of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said South Sumatra's exports were worth US$2.97 billion in first nine months of 2013.

Head of the regional office of BPS Baehdi Ruswana oil and accounted for US$487.31 million of the exports with other commodities accounting for the US$2.48 billion.

Baehdi said among the commodities other than oil and gas, rubber was the largest export earner for South Sumatra accounting for US$2.07 billion of its total export income, followed by coal accounting for US$137.88 million and CPO and derivatives accounting for US$115.67 million.

Indonesia is the world's largest producer of CPO and South Sumatra is one of the country's largest CPO producing provinces.

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