• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• BL Club
• Smartbuy

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Ramesh Sharma

Firm on policies: The Union Minister for Food and Agriculture, Mr Sharad Pawar, addressing the Economic Editors’ Conference in the Capital along with the Secretary, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Mr T. Nanda Kumar, on Wednesday. –

Our Bureau

New Delhi, Nov. 26 The Union Food and Agriculture Minister, Mr Sharad Pawar, has ruled out any immediate hikes in edible oil import duties or relaxations in current rice export restrictions.

Speaking at the Economic Editors’ Conference here on Wednesday, the Minister said the Government will take any action on raising import duty on edible oils only if oilseed prices in the domestic market fell below the official minimum support price (MSP) levels.

“As of today, oilseed prices are not below the MSP,” Mr Pawar said. The Centre, on November 18, imposed a 20 per cent import duty on crude soyabean oil, while leaving the duty on other oils unchanged.

Currently, crude palm, sunflower and rapeseed oil attract zero basic customs duty, while all refined oils (including soyabean) are chargeable to 7.5 per cent duty. The Centre has been under pressure from domestic solvent extractors to raise import duties, especially on the palm complex that accounted for over 85 per cent of the total 56.08 lakh tonnes (lt) of edible oil imports undertaken in the just ended 2007-08 oil year (November-October).

Mr Pawar said in the event of oilseed prices going below the MSP, the Government would consider either hiking import duties or alternatively undertake market intervention through state agencies. “There is a gap between domestic production and consumption requirement and, therefore, we cannot do away with imports,” he added.

On the rice export front, the Minister said the Government was concerned about the firming up of domestic prices in recent weeks, while clearly ruling out any lifting of the ban on non-basmati shipments. “For the next 4-5 months, I don’t want to create a situation where wheat and rice prices go up”, he said.

Regarding basmati, Mr Pawar noted that the Government had allowed exports of Pusa-1121 rice by declaring it as a basmati variety. He was, however, non-committal on any reduction in the current minimum export price of $1,200 a tonne or abolition on the Rs 8,000 a tonne duty on exports of all basmati rice.

Meanwhile, the Food Ministry has released a ‘conservative’ estimate of sugar output for the 2008-09 season (October-September) at 205 lt, which is below the earlier ‘optimistic’ estimate of 220 lt. With opening stocks of 110 lt and projected domestic consumption and exports of 220 lt and 20 lt, respectively, the season will end with closing stocks of 75 lt. The latter will meet four months’ domestic consumption requirement.

More Stories on : Oilseeds & Edible Oil | Agricultural Policy | Excise and Customs

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line