By Sadananda Mohapatra, edited by Mahul Brahma/NewsWire18
The Central Organisation for Oil Industry and Trade has demanded to raise duties on imported oils to check excessive imports and to save domestic edible oil industry, the trade body said in a press release. "The industry is of the view that zero-import duty regime for import of edible oils is disastrous and must be urgently replaced by 30% customs duty on crude and 40% duty on refined edible oils," the release said.
India currently imposes zero-duty on crude edible oil imports while 7.5% on refined oil. Indian importers took the advantage of zero-duty bought edible oils heavily this year. The country has imported around 7.57 million tonne edible oils (crude and refined) during 2008-09 (November-September), compared with 4.82 million tonne imported in the same period last year.
India imports around 45% of its 14 million tonne annual edible oil requirement. It buys soyoil from Brazil,Argentina and palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia. The country is the biggest buyer of the commodity afterChina. "We are not against imports, but we are concerned about excessive imports, especially in the case of palm oil," Davish Jain, president of COOIT told NewsWire18 in the sidelines of a press meet in Indore. Total palm oil imports during 2008-09 (November-September) rose 37% to 5.9 million tonne.
SOYBEAN
The trade body also blamed heavy palm oil imports for lower domestic oilseed crushing. "Because of cheap palm oil imports, local oilseeds are not being crushed and large inventories of oilseed are lying with farmers," the COOIT said. India's soymeal export dropped by 34% in 2008-09 (October-September) because of weak soybean supply. "Soybean carryover stock from the crop year 2008-09 are estimated to be around 600,000 tonne " Rajesh Agrawal, spokesperson for Soybean Processors' Association said. The estimated soybean carry over stock is significantly higher than the 2007-08 season.
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