KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian palm oil futures edged higher on Friday for a second straight day of gains and tracking strength in soyoil on the Chicago Board of Trade.
The benchmark palm oil contract for March delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange closed up 0.8 percent at 2,121 ringgit ($511.08) a tonne.
The contract, however, declined 1.7 percent this week after two consecutive weekly gains.
Trading volumes on Friday totalled 29,118 lots of 25 tonnes each.
"Palm is up tracking soyoil, but the stronger ringgit is limiting gains," said a Kuala Lumpur-based trader.
A strengthening of the Malaysian ringgit, palm's traded currency, usually makes the edible oil more expensive for foreign buyers. The ringgit strengthened by 0.4 percent to 4.1500 per dollar on Friday, its sharpest gain in over three weeks.
India is likely to cut its import tax on palm oil, a government source said on Friday, in line with New Delhi's trade agreements with Southeast Asian countries.
Earlier this year, India, the world's top buyer of vegetable oils, raised the import tax on crude palm oil to 44 percent from 30 percent and lifted the tax on refined palm oil to 54 percent from 40 percent to support local prices.
In other related oils, the Chicago January soybean oil contract was up 0.5 percent, while the January soybean oil contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange fell 1.2 percent.
Meanwhile, the Dalian January palm oil contract declined 1 percent.
Palm oil prices are affected by changes in soyoil prices, as they compete for a share in the global vegetable oil market.
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