- Bloomberg reported that Indonesia’s President-elect Joko Widodo plans to create a special unit to help boost the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio to 16%. Widodo plans to target mining, plantations, property and forestry sectors for tax collection.

- Reuters reported that palm and soyoil laden ships are backing up at a western Indian port. The congestion could increase domestic vegetable oil prices by US$10/tonne to US$15/tonne before the Deepavali season next month.

- Kandla Port has shut one of its four jetties since early-July for maintenance and dredging to deepen the draft to 13 metres. As such, there has been a backlog of 15-16 days in discharging a vessel. Traders said that as many as 10 vessels with 169,000 tonnes of edible oils have been stranded at Kandla Port since early-September.

- To help ease congestion, Kandla would be using jetties of fertiliser producer, IFFCO Ltd and refiner, Indian Oil Corp.

- In other news reports, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts Inc and Dunkin Brands Group Inc are pledging to source 100% sustainable palm oil in their US restaurants by 2016F.

- Krispy Kreme said that by end-2016F, a large percentage of its palm oil will be sourced through a combination of roundtable certified segregated supply, roundtable mass balance mixed source supply and purchase of GreenPalm certificates.

- Dunkin Donuts said that it would work with suppliers and purchasing cooperatives to source palm oil that is 100% traceable to the mill by end-2015F and plantation by end-2016F. Dunkin Donuts will also publish a phased implementation plan, including mapping of its international supply chain by 1 March 2015.

- Bloomberg reported that rising costs to transport corn and soybean from the fields to exporters and processors would result in lower bids for the vegetable crops. Demand for rail cars to transport commodities such as coal and grains have risen 4.3% in the year ended 30 August 2014.

- Most of the transportation costs will be borne by the grain produces in the form of lower prices. Storage costs will also increase because of higher shipping costs.

- It was also reported that palm oil inventory in Indonesia might have surged to the highest level in 15 months in August 2014 because of increased output and lower demand. According to industry experts, inventories might have jumped 34% from 2.0mil tonnes in July to 2.5mil tonnes in August.

Source: AmeSecurities