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