India's imports of vegetable oils rise 30.77% in January: SEA

16 Feb 2023 Evaluate

The Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) in its latest data has showed that India's imports of vegetable oils (edible and non-edible oils) rose 30.77 per cent in January to 16,61,750 tonnes, from 12,70,728 tonnes in the same month last year. This is the second highest monthly volume after September 2021 - when imports were 12,51,926 tonnes. Rise in imports was driven by higher imports of sunflower oil. Edible oil imports rose to 16,61,750 tonnes in January, while non-edible oil imports fell to nil from 18,802 tonnes.

The total import of vegetable oils during the first three months (November to January) of the oil year 2022-23 (November-October) rose 30 per cent to 47,73,419 tonnes compared to 36,71,161 tonnes in the same period last year. Edible oil imports increased to 47,46,290 tonnes during November 2022-January 2023 period of the current oil year from 36,07,612 tonnes in the year-ago period, while shipments of non-edible oils fell to 27,129 tonnes from 63,549 tonnes.

The SEA said ‘India's January sunflower oil imports surged to 4,61,000 tonnes, nearly triple average monthly imports as top exporters Russia and Ukraine seek to reduce stockpiles’. India's monthly sunflower oil imports averaged around 1,61,000 tonnes in 2021-22 oil year ended in October last year. It said ‘The surge in sunflower oil and soyabean oil imports could dampen India's palm oil imports and weigh on palm oil prices’. SEA also expressed concern over the sharp increase in import of RBD (refined) palmolein in the first quarter of 2022-23 oil year at 6.30 lakh tonnes, nearly 20 per cent of total palm oil import, affecting domestic refineries.

It further said ‘India's palm refining industry is heavily suffering from very low capacity utilization due to excessive import of RBD Palmolein and getting transformed into mere packers’. It demanded the duty difference between CPO (crude palm oil) and refined palmolein/palm oil needs to be increased from the current 7.5 per cent to at least 15 per cent by increasing RBD palmolein duty from current 12.5 per cent to 20 per cent without any change in CPO duty.

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