Business Times
Thursday - August 14, 2008
India’s edible imports fell three per cent in July from a year earlier, but are on course to remain in the range of 550,000-600,000 tonnes a month for the remaining three months of the oil year, a trade body said yesterday.
Imports by India, the world’s biggest buyer of vegetable oils after China, dropped to 532,456 tonnes in May from 548,908 a year earlier, the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.
“Imports in July fell due to lower imports of soyaoil after Argentina imposed an export duty of 42 per cent,” said B.V. Mehta, executive director of the trade body.
A protest by farmers in Argentina led to the rollback of the duty last month.
India imports almost half of its annual consumption of around 11 million tonnes of vegetable oil, buying palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia and soyaoil from Brazil and Argentina.
Edible oil purchases in the first nine months of the season that began in November were at 3.63 million tonnes, against 3.29 million tonnes in the same period a year earlier, the body said.
Mehta said falling prices of cooking oils usually leads to an increase in demand but it was too early to gauge the impact as traders who had contracted at higher prices were in a tight spot.
Global prices have dropped due to high palm oil stocks of 1.9 million tonnes in Malaysia, rollback of the export tax by Argentina and low crude oil prices, it said. - Reuters
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