Agribusiness giant PT Sampoerna Agro saw a 176 percent increase in sales in the first semester from a year earlier, thanks to a huge increase in prices and sale volume of crude palm oil (CPO), an executive said Wednesday.

The publicly listed company gained Rp 1.49 trillion (US$154 million) in sales revenue during the first months of the year, from Rp 541 billion posted in the same period last year, the company's director for Sumatra, Yassin Chandra, said in Palembang.

"The sales growth was attributed to the higher prices of CPO in the first semester, which averaged Rp 8.087 per kilogram, or 44.1 percent higher than in the same period last year. The 93.1 percent rise in sale volume also contributed greatly," Yassin said.

The robust sales of CPO pushed the company's net profits up by a hefty 748 percent, from Rp 39.59 billion in the January-June period in 2007, to Rp 336.4 billion in the first half of this year.

CPO contributed more than 85 percent to the company's total sales revenue. The company also develops and produces rubber as well as seeds for oil palm.

"From time to time the demand for seeds grows. We are now the third largest producer of such seeds nationally," Yassin said.

Sampoerna Agro runs four processing CPO plants in Sumatra and 1 in Kalimantan, with a total plantation area of 197,000 hectares -- of which 110,000 hectares has not been fully developed.

The company has claimed to prioritize domestic the market, with less than 10 percent of its total output exported, mainly to India and China.

Indonesia is currently the world's largest CPO producer.

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