Indonesia to lobby India for palm oil duty cuts
JAKARTA, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Indonesia, the world's second largest palm oilproducer, plans to lobby major buyer India next week to lower its heftyimport duty on crude palm oil (CPO), an Indonesian minister said onWednesday.Trade and Industry Minister Rini Soewandi said she will visit India, theworld's largest edible oils importer, on February 19-23 to hold talks withher Indian counterparts and ask them to lower the duties on CPO and itsrefined products by at least 10 percent."Indonesia's CPO is not competitive in India because the import duty ismuch higher than that on soyoil," Soewandi told reporters."So I will ask India to lower their import duty by at least 10 percent,"she said, adding it was impossible to ask India to make the duties on CPOand its refined products on par with those on soyoil.CPO and partially processed crude palm olein carry a tariff of 65 percentin India while its main competition, crude degummed soyoil, is only taxed45 percent.Fully processed palm oil, such as refined, bleached and deodorised (RBD)palm olein, is assessed a duty of 92.4 percent compared with 50.8 percenton refined soyoil.Indonesian traders said some 30 percent of Indonesia's palm oil exports inthe past two years went to India.Indonesia produced more than 8 million tonnes of palm oil in 2001, ofwhich more than 60 percent was exported.