(Recasts with production outlook, updates with details and quotes)
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Malaysia’s Sime Darby Plantation, the world’s largest palm oil planter, forecast crude palm oil output in Malaysia and Indonesia would recover from last year’s decline, and is optimistic prices will remain high this year.
Production of the edible oil in the top two producing countries fell last year due to extreme weather conditions and a coronavirus pandemic-induced labour shortage in Malaysia.
“This year we expect some recovery in (Malaysia’s) production, I expect not less than what we achieved in 2019,” group managing director Mohamad Helmy Othman Basha told a media briefing on Thurdsay.