PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Malaysia, the world's No.3 rubber exporter, is happy with current rubber prices and expects the commodity to trade between $2.40 and $3.00 a kilo this year, the country's commodities minister said on Monday.
Erratic weather sapped rubber output last year in the Southeast Asian country but production should range between 950,000 and a million tonnes in 2010, Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok told Reuters in an interview.
"I am sure the other countries also agreed that current prices are good for the rubber industry," Dompok said as officials from top rubber producers Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia meet in Kuala Lumpur to discuss stabilising prices.
"Products like rubber and palm oil are somehow rising in tandem with oil prices," he said in Malaysia's administrative capital.
Malaysia, the world's No.2 palm oil producer, may see output increase by 3.4 percent to 18.1 million tonnes this year on the weaker impact of the El Nino weather condition, which brings drier weather that usually saps yields.
"Based on historical production trends, crude palm oil production normally recovers the following year after a decline in the previous year as observed in 1998 and 2007," Dompok said.
But seasonally weaker production in the first quarter of this year will drive crude palm oil prices into a range between 2,500 and 2,700 ringgit, he said. Higher crude oil prices and steady demand from big buyers will also support prices.
Dompok said Malaysia had no plans to raise crude palm oil export quotas of 3 million tonnes after India last year asked the government to supply more, because the major vegetable oil buyer accounted for 21 percent of the quota in the period from Jan. to Nov. 2009.
(Reporting by Niluksi Koswanage and Angie Teo; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
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