KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's palm oil giant FGV Holdings reported a first quarter net loss on Friday, warning of continuing challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic though it forecast that crude palm oil prices would remain high.

FGV, the world's largest crude palm oil producer, said it logged a loss of 35.4 million ringgit ($8.56 million) during the January-March period, compared with a 142.3 million ringgit loss a year earlier.

Revenue rose 21.9% to 3.39 billion ringgit.

The better performance was due to improvements in all business sectors and was boosted by higher crude palm oil prices, the firm said in a bourse filing.

"The group expects crude palm oil prices to remain high but the plantation sector's operating environment will remain challenging due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the tight labour situation," it said.