Philippine preliminary coconut oil shipments rose 21.3 percent to 119,790 tonnes in November from actual exports of 98,783 tonnes in the same month of 2004, an industry group said on Friday.
The initial data in November brought total shipments by the world's largest exporter to 1,003,382 tonnes this year, up nearly 10.9 percent from the same 11-month period of 2004, the United Coconut Associations of the Philippines Inc said in a report.
The trade group had forecast Philippine exports of coconut oil used in the manufacture of aviation lubricants, cosmetics, soap and margarine would slip 2.9 percent to 930,000 tonnes for the whole of this year.
It said below-normal rains in 2004 would affect this year's harvest of copra, the coconut meat from which oil is extracted.
The trade group forecast copra production to fall 2.3 percent this year to 2.3 million tonnes.
Most of the Philippine exports of coconut oil go to the United States and Europe.