NEW DELHI: India’s palm oil imports rose by 12.20 per cent to 7,83,734 tonnes in September as against the year-ago period, on account of lower global prices, industry body Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) said today. India, the world’s leading vegetable oil buyer, had purchased 6,98,471 tonnes of palm oil in September last year.
Palm oil makes up 70 per cent of the country’s total vegetable oil imports. India meets 60 per cent of its annual vegetable oil demand of 17-18 million tonnes via imports.
India is being used as a dumping ground for excessive supply of edible oils in the world market. Excessive import has put tremendous pressure on the local prices, which are at a level where Indian oilseeds growing farmers are in distress and losing interest in oilseed crop,” SEA said in a statement.
According to SEA, imports have increased due to fall in international prices. For instance, prices of RBD palmolein have declined sharply to $559 per tonne in September this year as against $722 per tonne in the same period a year ago.
Prices of crude palm oil (CPO) fell to $517 per tonne from $706 per tonne, while crude soyabean oil declined to $689 per tonne from $840 in the year-ago period.
Among palm oil products, import of refined palm oil (RBD Palmolein) more than doubled to 1,73,410 tonnes in September this year from 82,803 tonnes in the year-ago period, while crude palm kernel oil (CPKO) rose marginally to 14,233 tonnes from 13,992 tonnes in the period under review. CPO imports, however, fell slightly to 5,96,091 tonnes in September this year from 6,01,676 tonnes in year-ago period.
Among soft oils, import of soyabean oil rose by 99 per cent to 3,21,061 tonnes in September from 1,61,016 tonnes, but sunflower oil shipments declined to 68,216 tonnes from 1,32,491 tonnes, while rapeseed oil shipments were 32,495 tonnes in the said period. The country’s total vegetable oil imports increased by 16 per cent to 12,16,546 tonnes in September this year from 10,47,620 tonnes in the year-ago period.
Last month, the government had hiked import duty on crude edible oil from 7.5 per cent to 12.5 per cent and refined edible oil from 15 per cent to 20 per cent in a bid to protect farmers’ interest and provide a level-playing field to domestic oilseed processors.
The impact of duty hike is yet to be seen in the current month’s shipments, though SEA has said that the marginal increase in duty was not enough to curb cheap imports. Vegetable oil imports, for November-September period of 2014-15, increased by 22 per cent to 12.9 million tonnes from 10.57 million tonnes as against the year-ago period.
India imports palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia and a small quantity of crude soft oils, including soyabean oil from Latin America. Sunflower oil is imported from Ukraine and Russia.
