SINGAPORE, May 25: Mal-aysian palm oil futures edged up on Friday on rising exports ahead of holy month of Ramazan in July, although investors were still cautious on lingering fear over the eurozone debt crisis.

Concern about global growth and a failure by European policymakers to make any significant breakthroughs in resolving the debt crisis have weighed on palm oil this week, which hit its lowest in 2012 on Wednesday.

But firm demand from India and Pakistan for Ramazan lifted palm futures to erase losses and post a 1.1 per cent gain this week.

“The market is consolidating after the excellent export numbers on festival buying and most of the negative news has already been priced in,” said a trader with a commodities brokerage in Malaysia.

The benchmark August palm oil futures on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exch-ange gained 2 per cent to close at 3,130 ringgit ($993) per ton. Prices touched 2,993 ringgit on Wednesday, the lowest in 2012.

Traded volumes stood at 35,239 lots of 25 tonnes each, higher than the usual 25,000 lots. Palm oil will revisit a low of 2,993 ringgit as a downtrend from 3,514 ringgit has not ended, said Reuters market analyst Wang Tao based on technical analysis.

Cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services reported a 10.5 per cent jump in Malaysian palm oil exports for May 1-25 to 1,146,406 tons, compared with just slightly over a million tonnes a month ago.

Another cargo surveyor, Societe Generale de Surveillance, also reported higher exports for the first 25 days of the month.

On the supply side, traders are watching dry US weather that could hurt the soybean crop and the possibility of a return of the El Nino weather pattern that could curb palm oil output in Southeast Asia.—Reuters