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After six months of continuous decline, vegetable oil imports rose by nearly 19 per cent in May to 6.64 lakh tonnes owing to low supply of domestic oil seeds, an industry body said on Wednesday.
The import of vegetable oil in the 2009-10 oil year (November-October) stood at 5.58 lakh tonnes, according to Solvent Extractor’s Association’s (SEA’s) latest data.
“In this oil year since November, local mills intensified crushing of oilseeds on increased parity compared to the same period last year, which led to a depletion of stocks in the domestic market,” SEA Executive Director B V Mehta told PTI. The low domestic supply of oil seeds in the markets led to a rise in import of vegetable oil in May, he added.
However, the vegetable oils imports during November, 2010 to May, 2011 declined by 12 per cent to 42.67 lakh tonnes as compared to 48.49 lakh tonnes in the corresponding period of 2009-10 oil year (November-October), according to the data.
“Total imports in the first seven months of the current oil year declined owing to increased availability of oil seeds in the market and increased parity due to record production of oilseeds in the country,” Mr Mehta said.
India is estimated to have harvested a record 30.25 million tonnes of oilseeds in 2010-11 crop year (July-June).
The current stock of edible oils as of June 1, 2011 at various ports is estimated at 4.7 lakh tonnes and about 8.75 lakh tonnes in pipelines.
“Total stock, both at ports and in pipelines, is estimated at 13.45 lakh tonnes as compared to 12.75 lakh tonnes as of May 1, 2011,” SEA said.
India imports palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia and soyabean oil from Argentina and Brazil. At present, there is zero duty on imports of crude edible oil, while refined edible oils attract 7.5 per cent duty.
The country had imported a record 9.2 million tonnes of vegetable oils in 2009-10 oil year to meet domestic demand of 14-15 million tonnes.
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