KUALA LUMPUR: Crude palm oil (CPO) prices on Malaysia's

KUALA LUMPUR: Crude palm oil (CPO) prices on Malaysia's
Derivatives Exchange are likely to trend further south amid a
lack of fresh leads, dealers said Friday.

CPO prices for February closed at 1,626 ringgit (US$428) a
ton at the end of the week.

"The market will initially be softer," a dealer with a local
brokerage said.

"Export figures to be released Monday are not expected to be
impressive and there has been no demand from China, Pakistan and
India."

The dealer said news that India would not reduce import duties
for palm oil would also drag down the market.

"The market will try to test the 1,600 level and could even go
down to 1,570," said another local dealer.

In the futures market, the February contract fell 51 ringgit
over the week to settle at 1,626 a ton. The March contract was
down 47 ringgit to 1,623 a ton while April fell 41 ringgit to end
at 1,619.

The average daily price for February was 1,648.80 ringgit a
ton. -- AFP

Farm subsidies ineffective: Study

PARIS: Government farm subsidies largely do not work and most
of the money never ends up as an income gain for farmers,
according to a new report by the OECD released on Friday.

The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development said its study showed that only 25 percent of the
estimated US$1 billion (939 million euros) in state agriculture
subsidies ends up as extra income for farmers.

"None of the support measures we studied would seem to provide
long-term income benefits for farm households efficiently," the
study concluded.

"It is clear that widely prevailing approaches to support are
not efficient in improving farm household income, and even have
the opposite effect of raising costs and reducing farm
profitability over the longer term," it said.

The study said that because most of the aid is calculated on
the basis of production, larger and richer farms tend to be the
recipients of the taxpayer subsidies.

It also found that 40 percent of the aid wound up going to
farm suppliers while 14 percent went to extra rent for non-
farming landlords.

The report suggested that governments wanting to increase the
income of farmers look to other methods besides agricultural
policy. -- AFP

G7 finance summit delayed

PARIS: A finance summit of the Group of Seven leading
industrialized nations, scheduled for Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 in
Paris, has been delayed, a French finance ministry spokesman said
Thursday.

"Several G7 finance ministers told us they had a problem in
attending the Feb. 1 meeting," the spokesman said. "We are in
consultations to find a new date," he added.

Finance Minister Francis Mer later said the meeting would be
postponed "15 days."

"One cannot hold a G7 without the Americans, because Mr
Snow ...," he said, without completing the sentence.

According to a source close to the discussions, the
postponement mainly was due to the fact that the nomination of
the new U.S. treasury secretary, John Snow, had not yet been
approved by the U.S. Senate.

Snow, named in December to replace Paul O'Neill, is to be
interviewed by the U.S. Senate finance committee on Jan. 28. --
AFP

S'pore exports bounces back

SINGAPORE: Singapore's key exports bounced back to mild growth
last year from a sharp contraction in 2001 but the recovery was
below market expectations, the government trade body said Friday.

Non-oil domestic exports (NODX) grew 1.9 percent to S$98.6
billion (US$57 billion) in 2002, swinging back from a 14.5
percent contraction the year before, International Enterprise
(IE) Singapore said.

With global electronics demand still subdued, Singapore's
pharmaceutical and petrochemical exports boosted the overall
growth. Electronics make up about 60 percent of the NODX.

For the month of December, NODX grew 4.4 percent to US$8.0
billion, much slower than the 19 percent rise registered in
November.

Singapore's total trade in 2002 rose 1.5 percent to S$432
billion, reversing a 9.4 percent decline in 2001.

Analysts said Singapore, which narrowly escaped a second
recession in the final quarter of 2002, needs a stronger export
showing for it to achieve the upper end of its gross domestic
product (GDP) forecast of between 2.0-5.0 percent this year. --
AFP

ADB lends Vietnam $45m

MANILA: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Friday it has
approved a US$45-million loan to Vietnam to support efforts for
improving public administration.

The bank is also extending three million dollars in grants to
support the program which is intended to produce better-trained
and more professional civil servants.

Among the objectives of the program are improved efficiency,
reduced wastage of time, money, red tape, transaction costs and
corruption, the bank said in a statement from Manila.

Officials will be trained to give better service while the
administrative system will be modernized, including the
computerization of some functions and electronic linkage of
government agencies, the ADB added.

The loan only covers the first phase of the reform program,
extending from 2003 to 2005.

Further loans totaling $105 million, covering the second and
third phase of the program from 2006 to 2010, may be extended,
depending on the government's requests and the performance of the
first phase, the ADB said. -- AFP