MANILA, July 18 — A typhoon that pummelled a large part of the Philippines early this week damaged about 13 per cent of its coconut trees, the government said, further clouding the already weak prospects for the nation’s most valuable agricultural export this year.

Typhoon Rammasun, which killed at least 54 people in the Philippines, is the strongest storm to hit the Southeast Asian country after Super Typhoon Haiyan in November last year. It was heading towards southern China today.

Rammasun’s strong winds left 1.45 million coconut trees totally felled or crownless, while more than 43 million trees were slightly damaged, the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) said.

Just last month, the PCA said a fast-spreading insect infestation had damaged more than 2 million coconut trees in the world’s top exporter of coconut oil.

Still reeling from damage to about a tenth of its estimated 340 million coconut trees from Haiyan, the country has taken emergency measures to head off the infestation that it fears could severely cripple its coconut exports.

Rammasun crossed the Philippines’ major coconut plantations in both the Bicol and Southern Tagalog regions on the main island of Luzon, with more than 1 million trees totally felled or left crownless in the hardest-hit Camarines Sur province alone, the PCA said in a report seen by Reuters.

Damaged trees in Batangas, Cavite and Quezon provinces totalled 355,000, according to the report submitted to Secretary Francis Pangilinan, the country’s food security chief.

“The PCA will validate the exact damage in coconut population, number of farmers affected and the total income losses,” PCA Deputy Administrator Roel Rosales said in the report.

The country’s annual exports of coconut products, including coconut oil, averaged US$1.3 billion (RM4.14 billion) in the past two years.

Preliminary industry data showed January to May coconut oil shipments plunged 49 per cent from a year ago to 302,297 tonnes as a result of the typhoon devastation in November.

Industry group United Coconut Associations of the Philippines, which for now has retained its estimate for a 24.5 per cent drop in coconut oil exports this year to 850,000 tonnes, has said the insect infestation could further hurt output. — Reuters