PUTRAJAYA: Crude palm oil (CPO) fetched RM2,798 per tonne on Wednesday, while fresh fruit bunches (FFB) hit RM655 per tonne on Thursday, the highest prices recorded so far this year, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Seri Datuk Mah Siew Keong said.

For the January-June period this year, the average price of CPO rose 13.4% to RM2,517 per tonne, while the average price of FFB increased 15.9% to RM546 per tonne versus a year earlier.

Mah said export earnings of commodity products for the first six months of this year increased 3.2% to RM56.3 billion from RM54.5 billion in the equivalent period last year.

"It is hoped that the good performance can be strengthened to further improve the achievement of the commodity sector, a bastion of the country's economic prosperity," he said at the ministry's monthly assembly and launch of the Merdeka Month and Fly the National Flag 2016 at the ministry level in Putrajaya on Friday. 

Mah said the commodity industry was the "rice bowl" of nearly 600,000 farmers and smallholders who depended on international market conditions and they would be badly affected by falling palm oil and rubber prices. 

"Hence, I urge the ministry and its agencies to continue to think of appropriate intervention methods to reduce the people's sufferings due to falling earnings as a result of falling commodity prices," he said.

Mah said intervention programmes undertaken by the Government such as rubber production incentive, which helped stabilise the earnings of rubber smallholders and tappers nationwide, should be strengthened so that it is could easily reached the target groups. - Bernama