Philippine coconut oil exports fell for the tenth consecutive month in April, down 73.5 percent from a year earlier, because of weak global demand, initial data from an industry group showed on Thursday.

Shipments from the Southeast Asian nation, the world's biggest exporter of coconut oil, declined to 30,585 tons in April 1 to 29 from 115,632 tons for the whole of April 2008, the United Coconut Associations of the Philippines Inc (UCAP) said.

That brought exports for the first four months of the year to just 135,118 tons, down 62.8 percent from the 362,777 tons shipped abroad in the same period last year.

The industry group provides a more detailed preliminary monthly report about three weeks after the end of each month.

The Philippines has forecast exports of coconut oil -- used in food, cosmetics and biodiesel -- to slip to 835,000 tons this year from 847,626 tons in 2008, on soft global demand and its increasing use as feedstock by local biodiesel producers.

The Southeast Asian nation exports 80 percent of its output of coconut oil. But it accounts for less than 5 percent of the global fats and oils market due to the drop in local production in the last two years and the growing popularity of other vegetable oils, such as palm.