"The trend is the same. Prices are flat because of a lack of fresh leads. The market is very quiet and in need of fresh blood," said one Jakarta-based trader.

Traders said ex-factory olein for spot delivery was quoted around 5,300-5,400 rupiah/kg. Olein for next week's delivery was being offered at 5,200-5,250 rupiah/kg.

Olein, which is used as cooking oil, is the refined form of crude palm oil (CPO).

The Jakarta Post newspaper reported on Friday economists had again urged the government to liberalise the trade of CPO and cooking oil to boost the country's foreign exchange earnings.

It quoted Bungaran Saragih, an economist at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, as telling a seminar on Thursday the government would earn at least $2 billion from CPO exports in this Financial year if it liberalised the trade.

"The government should promote the export of commodities which have the potential to be large foreign exchange earners to help the country out of the economic crisis," he said.

"The CPO industry falls into that category and any increase in exports would also be of benefit to smallholder farmers," he added.

Nawir Messi, an economist from Institute for Development Economics and Finance (INDEF), said the government's policy of imposing a high tax on the export of CPO had cost the country $384 million in lost revenue this year.

He told the same discussion that the export tax had cost the CPO processing industry $99 million and oil palm plantation owners $400 million in lost revenue, $200 million of which would have found its way to smallholder oil palm farmers.

The export tax for crude palm oil (CPO) was raised in July to 60 per cent from 40 per cent in order to curb the export boom triggered by a tumbling rupiah.

But traders said the move to increase the tax had failed to stabilise prices of cooking oil, either because of smuggling or because of poor distribution.

Traders said the government had also failed in its programme to subsidise cooking oil.

The subsidy was drawn up so that the government could buy olein from the money taken from the export tax and then sell the cooking oil cheaply to residents.

The state commodity regulator Bulog has bought 163,811 tonnes of cooking oil since July 28 through four tenders. It has assigned Inkoppas to distribute the cooking oil to traditional markets.