• Plummeting crude copra oil exports :
  The copra export figures have dropped during the last few years, especially since 1998. In terms of the market value, this decrease reached 60.8% in comparison with 1997, since the figures were 392 million Fr. CFP in 1997 and only 153 million in 1998. Quantitatively speaking,  the amount of copra oil  exported has decreased from 6 060 to 2 703 tonnes, which amounts to a  55.4% decrease. The mean price of crude copra oil also dropped on the international market from 64.67 F CFP in 1997 to 56.78 F CFP in 1998, which is a 7.9% decrease.
  

• The copra oil importing countries:
  "L'huilerie de Tahiti" ships its entire output to the European Union, mainly to Belgium and  Luxembourg, which take 80% of the company's copra oil exports. Polynesian copra oil is competing  heavily with that exported by the other leading producers in  South-Eastern Asia, such as the Philippines, Thailand and India. 

Copra oil importers	1998	Perc.	1997	Perc.	Fluctuations 98/97	Perc.	1996
	M. F CFP	Total %	M. F CFP	Total %	M. F CFP	%	M. F CFP
Bel. Lux	127.66	83.2	287.38	73.35	-159.72	-55.6	370.1
N. Zealand	25.83	16.8	17.68	4.5	+8.14	+46
Netherlands			49.58	12.65	-49.58	-100	34.4
France			37.24	9.5	-37.23	-100
Total	153.5	100	391.9	100	-238.39	-60.8	404.5

• The development of the cosmetic sector, which uses some of the copra produced, focuses on an ancestral flag-ship product, Tahitian monoi. The table below shows how the exports of this product are distributed.

From the figures on the exportation of monoi and its by-products since 1992, four successive growth phases can be seen to have occurred: a period of expansion (from 1992 to 1994), one of stability (in 1994 and 1995), a recession (in 1996 and 1997), and a period of revival (1998 et 1999).

France is the main export market for monoi at the international level. This country serves as a distribution point for the rest of Europe, and therefore deals with 83% of all the monoi exported from French Polynesia.

Three percent are exported to New Caledonia, 4% to Germany, and 5% to the United States, which constitute a huge potential market.

 

The promotion of Tahitian monoi is entirely organised by the "Groupement Interprofessionnel du Monoi de Tahiti" (G.I.M.T), which was created in 1992.

The G.I.M.T carried out a survey on the image of Tahitian monoi, which showed that a shift has occurred as far as the demands of the Western consumers are concerned: they are no longer looking for a product which is " 100% monoi" (sun-tan oil), but tend to prefer more complex by-products containing monoi (skin lotion, hair care products, moisturising sun-tan lotion, etc.). These by-products are used all year round, contrary to sun-tan oil, which is bound to sell only in the summer.
As an indication, the average price of monoi and its by-products was 647 Fr. CFP/kg in 1997 and 687 Fr. CFP/kg in 1998.

The G.I.M.T is emphasising the need to pursue the policy of including monoi in the composition of various cosmetic products, such as beauty creams, shower gels, soaps, etc., and that of stressing the "naturally beautifying" qualities of the product, to which it owes its success.