New Delhi: Decline in oilseeds production, appreciation of rupee against dollar and zero import duties during the last many months has made India the largest edible oil importer in 2009, a slot it took surpassing China.
Import of crude edible oil to India saw a huge jump of 35% to a record 8.4 million tonne (mt) in 2009 crossing China for the first time in the last six years. India’s edible oil imports comprise almost 80% of palm oil.
China, which was till recently was occupying the slot of top importer of edible oil increased its imports to 8.16 million tonne, an increase of 8.4%. India’s vegetable oil imports rose by 5.61% to 7.87 lakh tonne in December 2009, the Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) on Thursday said.
India had imported 7.45 lakh tonne vegetable oils in the same month of last year. “Lower crushing amid price disparity, smaller oilseeds crop and zero-duty on crude oil and marginal duty on refined oils encouraged larger import,” BV Mehta, director, SEA said.
Mehta said rising consumption would result in further increase in edible oil imports to India. “These factors will push the country’s vegetable oil imports between 9.0 and 9.5 million tonne in the current oil year that started in October,” Mehta said in a statement. Import of RBD palmolein and crude palm stood at 1.37 lakh tonne and 4.76 lakh tonne respectively in December 2009.
During the same period, the shipment of soft oils such as soyabean rose sharply to 1 lakh tonne from 60,899 tonne in same period last year.
Experts believe that edible oil imports would increase as rabi oilseed planting has not been up to the mark till now, and will not compensate for the losses suffered during kharif planting.
According to ministry of agriculture, oilseeds acreage is down by almost six lakh hectare at 8.4 million hectare till now.
Total import of vegetable oils during the first two months of the 2009-10 oil-year (Oct-Nov) was up by 18% at 1.5 million tonne, compared with 1.3 million tonne in the same period last year, the SEA said.
Despite marginally appreciation of global edible oil prices in the last few months, oilseed crushing has not picked up due to low margins to the millers and expectation of lower rabi output.
Though the consumers have been reaping the benefit of lower retail prices of most varieties of edible oil, but..refining capacity of most millers have come down because of low output India imports more than half of total 14 million tonne of edible oil consumption. Around 2 million tonne of soyabean oil is imported from Argentina and Brazil while about 7 million tonne of palm oil is imported from Malaysia and Indonesia annually.
Recently, leading edible oils analyst, Dorab Mistry stated that prices of edible oil is expected to rise by middle of next year due to expected decline in palm oil output in Malaysia, the world biggest producer of the oil. He had said that Malaysia’s production would drastically fall next year because of end of the high cycle where palm plantation needs to be replanted and El Nino phenomenon....
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