Vegetable Oil Imports Fall 3%, Duty Difference Leads To Higher RBP Palmolein Imports

As per the latest release from Solvent Extractors' Association of India, the import of vegetable oils during January 2019 is reported at 1,275,259 tons compared to 1,291,141 tons in January 2018, consisting 1,210,603 tons of edible oils and 64,656 tons of non-edible oils i.e. down by 3%. The overall import of vegetable oils during November 2018 to January 2019 is reported at 3,620,316 tons compared to 3,628,734 tons- more or less the same, thanks to higher import duty.

Ministry of Finance w.e.f. 1.1.2019 reduced import duty on palm oil and also reduced the duty difference between crude and palm oil from 10% to 5% on palmolein to be imported from Malaysia.This has lead to overall reduction in effective duty by 4.4% for CPO, but in case of RBD Palmolein imported from Malaysia would be 9.9%.The duty reduction has reduced the effective duty difference between CPO & RBD Palmolein to just 5% against previous 10%. This has resulted into sharp increase in import of RBD Palmolein to 167,429 tons in January19 from 130,459 tons in December 18 i.e. up by 28%.This is likely to increase in coming months considering the shipments lined up from Malaysia for export of RBD Palmolein to India.

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