KARACHI (August 11 2006): Palm oil and olien imports have declined significantly, almost 50 percent, during the last 25 days due to skyrocketing international prices and non-viability of trade, importers said on Thursday.

They said that prices of palm and olien oil keep rising on the international front and this situation has badly hit the import process, which they say, was going smoothly during the last first week of last month.

Commercial importers said they are currently monitoring the international trade meticulously on daily basis, however, the number of placement of fresh orders has slashed to almost 50 percent.

"Actually, we had been cautious when the prices broke $475 per ton fence, however, we (importers) kept bringing in the commodity as the trade was viable three weeks prior," said an importer.

"We are very carefully placing import orders now because it has been anticipated that the international prices of palm oil or olien oil might see declining trend to some extent in the next couple of weeks," said an importer.

He said that the international prices have gone up considerably during the last 25 days and this price-hike has directly hit those who are still engaged in importing palm oil or olien oil.

"An aggregate $55 per ton has been increased during the last 25 days," said a leading importer, adding the international palm oil or olien oil prices started rising from $475 per ton to $527 per ton during the period under review.

He said the importers are reluctant to import palm oil in bulk quantity as they are anticipating that an expensive commodity would raise the domestic prices and that situation could affect the sale of the imported commodity.

"Another factor, which has provided a justification to the importers to import lesser quantity, is the availability of sufficient imported commodity in the country and regular production," a trader said, adding that some fund managers are also playing with those, who are sitting on the stocks.

Another Karachi-based importer said that some previously booked contracts are being realised with the arrival of commodity, adding that import contracts that had been booked during May and June (2005), have been arrived during July and still arriving here.

"Deals of around 0.2 million tonnes of palm oil and olien oil are being actualised these days and an ample supply of refined edible oil would be available in the local market during the month of Ramazan," he added.

Meanwhile, it is pertinent to mention here that a number of countries had started setting up plants for the production of bio-diesel with palm fruits, including Singapore, Malaysia, China and some European countries. This situation has badly destabilised the world's scenario where the demand and supply gap is consistently widening and pushing the international and domestic markets' prices towards unprecedented levels.