MANILA: The Philippines' coconut oil exports in 2011 fell 38.7 percent, a steeper drop than an industry forecast, as the world's top seller of the edible oil suffered from tight copra supply, preliminary industry data showed on Monday.
But coconut oil exports in December alone rose 2.7 percent from a year earlier to 74,500 tonnes, the first monthly rise
since November 2010, data from the United Coconut Associations of the Philippines (UCAP) showed.
Shipments last year totaled 823,381 tonnes compared with 1.34 million tonnes the previous year, well below the 900,000 tonnes earlier projected by UCAP.
The industry group was firming up its forecast for coconut oil exports this year, which may be announced later this week, UCAP executive director Yvonne Agustin told Reuters.
UCAP has blamed extreme weather and the stress suffered by coconut trees following strong production in recent years for the drastic decline in the output of copra, from which coconut oil is extracted.
Around four-fifths of the Southeast Asian country's coconut oil shipments go to the United States and Europe, with the rest going to Asia.
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