MUMBAI: India’s edible oil imports during the December-February quarter are expected to be a whopping 2.3 million tons, including 1.9 million tons of palm oil, almost double of normal.
India, traditionally one of the world’s largest importers of palm oil and soyoil, is stepping up purchases of sunflower oil from Ukraine, Russia and Argentina, because of a recently imposed import tariff on soyoil.
According to the Solvent Extractors Association, the country imported 124,118 tons of sunflower oil during the November January quarter compared with no shipments a year ago.
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Shipments of sunflower oil in February, expected at around 90,000 metric tons may exceed a likely 75,000 tons of soyoil, Sandeep Bajoria, chief executive of Sunvin Group, a Mumbai based trading company, said Thursday.
India is importing more sunflower oil compared with soyoil for the first time in several years, dragging domestic sunflower seed prices to levels below the government-set intervention price, capturing market share from local seed crushers.
The trend is a result of the 20% import duty recently imposed on soyoil while sunflower oil can be imported duty-free.
Source : Commodity Online