Astra Agro's CPO sales rise 37%

Astra Agro's CPO sales rise 37%

JAKARTA: PT Astra Agro Lestari, Indonesia's largest publicly traded plantations company, said palm oil sales rose 37 percent in the first ten months of the year as exports more than doubled.

Sales of the edible oil rose to 602,353 metric tons in the ten months ended Oct. 31, from 439,275 tons a year earlier, the company said in a statement to the Jakarta Stock Exchange. Exports rose 147 percent to 291,278 tons while sales to domestic buyers declined by 3.2 percent, Astra Agro said.

"There's a higher demand from India, our biggest exports destination," Tjahyo Dwi Ariantono, Astra Agro's head of investor relation, said in a phone interview. He didn't give export figures to India.

Earlier this month, the Solvent Extractors Association of India, said the country may import 22 percent more edible oil in October through December from a year earlier because of a decline in the country's oilseed crop. -- Bloomberg