23/06/2011 (Daily Times) - The share of edible oil in the total food imports stood at 40 percent during 11 months of fiscal 2011, traders said.

The edible oil imports stood at $1.89 billion out of the total import volume of $4.72 billion.

According to Federal Bureau of Statistics, country’s import bill on food increased around 50 percent as compared to the same period last year.

During 11 months of fiscal 2011, sugar imports stood at $680 million, tea $310 million, whereas import of dry milk stood at 140 million and different lintel $730 million.

Despite the fact the country ranks fifth in milk producing countries— yearly production of 35 percent of milk gets wasted—mainly due to poor infrastructure.

Due to poor production of lintels in the country, lintels imports witnessed a 50 percent increase during 11 months of fiscal 2011.

The burgeoning prices of edible oil in international market, and increase in demand remained the main contributing factors for rise in import.

“We imported more than 2 million tonnes of edible oil products, that catered about 76 percent of the total country’s edible oil consumption,” said member of Pakistan Vegetable Oil Mills Association (PVOMA) Nasir Ibrahim.

Nasir said demand for palm oil usually increases around 6-7 percent two to three months before Ramadan.

The international price of RBD reached $1,058 per metric tonne while the price of palm olein touched around $ 1,070 per metric tonne.

“The country consumes around 2.2 million tonnes edible oil every year—out of which 0.63 million tonnes is contributed by the local growers while the remaining is imported to bridge the demand-supply,” he added.

He said the ITP duty should be increased or decreased in proportion to the changes in the price of imported edible oil in the international market.

He said the rates of sales tax levied at 16 percent and withholding and FED tax charged at the rate of 2 percent on the imported palm oil should also be reduced.

“Imports are made under Malaysian Palm Oil Concess-ionary Trade Agreement (MPOCTA), like free-trade agreement (FTA),” he added. A crop analyst, Shakeel Ahmad said that about more than 50 solvent extraction plants are operating in Pakistan, which, besides producing 599,000 tonnes of edible oil.

According to him, Pakistan has already imported 36,000 tonnes of soyabean under PL-480 programme from USA. After linking of the imports with the composite rates of dollar, the unabated increase in edible oil prices has already hit the masses severely as the price of palm oil in local markets has gone up by at least Rs 1172 per 40 kg.

He said due to higher import cost, the manufacturers of vegetable ghee and cooking oil were unable to pass on the maximum benefit in case of any slight decline as they were facing multiple problems including power and gas loadshedding and production loss.