Sep 14 2010 5:24PM
MUMBAI (Dow Jones)--India's vegetable oil imports in August rose 64% from a year earlier to 1.07 million metric tons--the highest shipment in a single month since 1994--because of festive demand, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India said Tuesday.
Total vegetable oil imports during the first 10 months of the marketing year that began Nov. 1 rose 5% to 7.45 million tons from 7.07 million tons a year earlier, the trade body said.
India is the world's second-largest vegetable oil importer after China and meets more than half its vegetable oil requirements through imports as production lags consumption. The country imported a record 8.66 million tons of vegetable oil in the marketing year to Oct. 31, 2009.
The country bought 1.0 million tons of edible oil in August, sharply up from 612,898 tons a year earlier, the trade body said.
B.V. Mehta, executive director of the trade body, said that taking into consideration the current import trend, the total edible oil imports in 2009-10 is likely to be around 9 million tons.
He earlier estimated edible imports between 8.5 million to 8.6 million tons.
India will likely import 700,000 to 800,000 tons of edible oil in September, he added.
The country imports palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia and soyoil mostly from Brazil and Argentina. Soyoil imports in August more than doubled to 216,966 tons from 96,474 tons last year.
The Solvent Extractors' Association said India imported 547,878 tons of crude palm oil in August, up from 372,976 tons, while refined, bleached and deodorized palm olein imports rose to 139,481
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