JAKARTA, April 16 Asia Pulse - Low investment in research into theoleochemical industry has caused sluggish development of the crude palmoil-based industry in Indonesia, a researcher of the Indonesian Instituteof Sciences (LIPI) said.

Thursday April 15, 2004 - MOST research houses have placed a buy call onplantation stocks, especially select pure plantation players, inanticipation of continued bullishness in crude palm oil (CPO) prices andtightness in global edible oils supply.

Kampala, Apr 15, 2004 --LL investors who engage in producing andprocessing of palm oil will be awarded concessions in order to ensurespeedy development of the sector, Sam Kuteesa, the finance minister incharge of investment has said.

Friday April 16, 05:09 AM - CHICAGO (Reuters) - Phil Sokolof, amillionaire industrialist whose own near-fatal heart attack at age 43spurred a crusade against the evils of fatty foods, died on Thursday, hisorganization said.Sokolof, 82, died in an Omaha, Nebraska, hospital after a short illnessthat was not heart-related, said a spokeswoman for the National HeartSavers Association, the organization he founded in the mid-1980s.

15 April, 2003 - PRICES of crude palm oil futures (CPO) are expected toaverage RM1,500 a tonne next year as a result of the continuous squeeze inglobal supplies of edible oils and fats.

Thursday April 15, 07:39 PM - SAMPIT, C Kalimantan, April 15 Asia Pulse- As many as 10 new investors have expressed readiness to deal withbusinesses in the plantation sector in East Kotawaringin district inIndonesia's Central Kalimantan province to replace the 13 privateplantation companies whose licenses have expired since 2003.

14 April, 2004 - MALAYSIA’S palm kernel cake industry received anotherboost with the invention of a machine that improves the quality of thepalm oil by-products and hence, improved demands.

........This report exposes the continuing failure of successive UKGovernments and companies to address the issue. Today areas of forestsgreater than the size of Wales are being lost every year in many countriesnot just in Latin America but also in South East Asia and Africa. The rateof loss in Indonesia, for example, is actually accelerating. Theinternational trade in palm oil is driving forest clearance as well asbeing a cause of human rights abuses on a massive scale.UK consumers will be shocked to learn that they are playing an unwittingpart in the continuing destruction of the tropical rainforest not justthrough purchasing timber and paper products but through a wide variety ofeveryday items in their shopping bag. Chocolate, crisps, detergents,toothpastes and shampoo all are tainted with the damaging environmentaland social impacts of palm oil. This hidden ingredient imported frommonoculture plantations of South East Asia is found in more than 10 percent of all products on the supermarket shelves.

KARACHI (February 06 2004): The entire ghee industry in Pakistan has beenparalysed reportedly by heavy burden of duty structure imposed by thegovernment which is almost 75 percent of the C&F value.

JAKARTA, April 12 Asia Pulse - Indonesia's share of the Chinese marketfell to 1.09 per cent in January 2004 from 1.13 per cent in the same monthlast year, but the bilateral trade was still in favor of Indonesia.