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The Solvent Extractors’ Association of India’s (SEA) latest data of vegetable oil imports show a decline in the imports of refined oils by nearly half in the first two months of the season, November and December 2017, as against the same period last year.
The fall in the refined oil imports is seen as a direct effect of the Centre’s move of increasing the duty on edible oils in November last year. Imports of refined oil (RBD Palmolein) fell to 254,286 tonnes from 486,502 tonnes in same period of last year, down about 48 per cent. But imports of crude oil increased to 2,029,318 tonnes (1,843,657 tonnes).
“The raising of import duty on RBD palmolein to 45 per cent from 40 per cent, will go a long way in improving capacity utilisation of our refining industry. The import duty was to offset the export duty imposed by Malaysia and Indonesia. The hike in import duty by India led Malaysia to suspend the export taxes on crude palm oil for a three months period effective from January 8, 2018. With this, the export duty on CPO will be nil, which will reduce the landed cost of crude palm oil and thereby benefit the domestic refiners,” said a SEA statement on Friday.
Vegoil imports for December 2017 stood at 1,088,783 tonnes (1,209,685 tonnes).
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