Market Review Dessicated Coconut
February 2021
Price of desiccated coconut is expected to remain strong in the first half of 2021. In January 2021, price of Philippines’ DC (FOB US) was 37% higher than a year earlier. The price was the highest since September 2017. Meanwhile, in Indonesia price in January 2021 was 44% higher as opposed to the price in January 2020. It is worth noted that in spite of Covid-19 pandemic, bullish market of DC was perceived in 2020. Price of DC was 20-40 percent higher in several producing countries. In Philippines, the annual average price of DC was 28% higher compared to the 2019’s. In Sri Lanka price in 2020 was 44% higher than a year earlier. Similarly, price DC in Indonesia was leveled up by 48% during 2020. The price is expected to be steady in the first quarter of 2021.
As expected, global trade of desiccated coconut (DC) in 2020 dropped due to the pandemic and lower supply. Preliminary figures show that import demand of DC in 2020 was 334,736 MT during January-December 2020 which was a sharp decline by 25%. Major importing countries like US and European Union countries received lower quantity of the product during the year. Shipment DC to US was 41,151 MT which was 10% lower than a year earlier. At the same time, DC delivery to European countries slightly declined. During January-October 96,213 MT of DC was shipped to Europe which was 0.2% lower than previous year’s volume.
On the other side, supply of DC has been expected to depreciate as production of coconut projected to lower worsened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Export supply of DC from Philippines, the largest exporting country, eased to level of 135,528 MT during January-November 2020. The export volume went down by 3.4% compared to the same period in 2019. Delayed in shipment has affected export volume of DC from Philippines. Sri Lanka experienced a drop in export of DC during 2020. Sri Lanka shipped 29,591 MT of DC to global market which was a drop by more than 40% compared to the previous year’s volume. Sri Lanka suffered from the policy taken by Indian Government to impose import duties on the product. In 2019 export of DC from Sri Lanka to India was 20,527 MT and sharply dropped to only 5,181 MT in 2020. On the other hand, Indonesia benefited from limited supply of DC from other producing countries, especially Philippines. Indonesian DC manufacturers boosted their export during 2020 to the level of 128,086 MT, 30% higher than the export quantity a year earlier. The export recorded the highest ever.
USA and Europe were still major destinations of DC from Philippines. The shipment of the product to the US and European countries accounted for more than 57% of the total export during January-November 2020. In the period, Philippines shipped 32,041 MT od DC to. Meanwhile, at the same time 20,292 MT was sent to Netherlands, the main hub in Europe In Asia, China was the largest importing country of DC from the Philippines receiving 5,094 MT of DC.
Singapore has become the main hub for DC from Indonesia. In 2020, more than 34% of the total export volume during was shipped to Singapore and to be distributed to other countries. Other major destinations include Germany, Russia, Thailand, China, and Egypt.
