Malaysian crop forecaster Ivan Wong is scheduled to announce his latest March crop estimates on Wednesday before the release of official crop data from the Palm Oil Registration and Licensing Authority (PORLA) on April 15.

"This week, we are going to see some fresh fundamentals, March data from Porla and Ivan Wong. If there are no big suprises, then I think price movements will be based on technicals," said a trader in Kuala Lumpur.

In his report last week, Wong said Malaysia's palm oiloutput was estimated to have risen 22.5 per cent to 689,000 tonnes in March from a month earlier.

Wong put palm oil stocks at the end of March at 760,000 tonnes against 713,658 tonnes at end-February. Exports in March were estimated at 575,000 tonnes against 444,335 in February.

On last Friday,Malaysia's benchmark third month June futures contract ended 23 ringgit higher at 1,563 ringgit a tonne. Traders pegged the immediate resistance for the contract at 1,600 ringgit with support at 1,550.

"There is still a lot of uncertainty in the immediate term. "Supply/demand is still the main issue and it does not look encouraging," said the Malaysian trader.

India, in its trade policy declaration for 1999/2000 (April-March) on March 31, allowed private traders to import RBD palm oil, but it clarified later that the import duty on RBD palm oil would be 38.5 percent and not 16.5 per cent as said earlier.

"We are still waiting for fresh buying orders from India,"said a Malaysian exporter. Indonesian traders said the market would experience another uncertain period.

"Most players will take a wait-and-see position because it is hard to see how the market is going to behave. The market continues to be quiet and I just don't know when this bearish trend will end," said one trader in Medan.

Indonesianpalm olein finished last week at 3,675-3,700 rupiah/kg in Jakarta. Another Medan trader said traders might hold their stocks this week to prevent prices from falling further.

Some other Indonesian traders believed prices softened due to news the government would not lower the crude palm oil export tax to 30 per cent from the current 40 per cent.

Smuggling had triggered tight supply in the main island of Java, but poor demand had prevented rises in olein prices, some other traders said.