India's veg-oil import decline by 11% in Nov: SEA

Driven by increased availability of oilseeds in domestic market, country's vegetable oils' import has declined by over 11 per cent to 6.68 lakh tonnes in November, according to an industry body. 

"Last year, we had a drought that has reduced availability leading to higher imports during the month of November," The Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) Executive Director V B Mehta said.

He said, however, the situation is different from last year's, as good monsoon has helped country in increasing oilseed output thereby making the availability good for crushing. 

India has imported 7.53 lakh tonnes of vegetable oil in November, last year, SEA said in a statement.

During the month under consideration, India had imported 6.5 lakh tonnes of edible oils and 16,655 tonnes of non-edible oils, the statement said.

Imports of vegetable oil during Oil Year 2009-10 (November 2009-October 2010) increased by 6.6 per cent to 92.4 lakh tonnes from 86.6 lakh tonnes in the same period of the previous oil year.

Mehta said, it is the first month of oil year 2010-11, so nothing can be predicted as now whether there would be a continuous decline in imports in forthcoming months also.

Imports of vegetable oil -- including edible oil, non-edible oil and vanaspati -- in the oil year ended October, 2010, amounted to 92.4 lakh tonnes and were valued at Rs 38,000 crore.

During November 2010, the country witnessed a 60 per cent decline in non-edible oil import to 16,655 tonnes compared to 41,289 tonnes.

This was the highest volume of edible oil imported by the country in a single oil year since 1994, when import restrictions on edible oil were first lifted.