15/03/2012 (Hindu Business Line) -  India’s vegetable oil imports rose 59 per cent in February to 8.75 lakh tonnes against 5.50 lakh tonnes in the year-ago period, according to the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India.

In November-February period of the current oil year, import of vegetable oil — that includes edible oil and non-edible oil — rose nearly 14 per cent to 30.6 lakh tonnes compared with 26.93 lakh tonnes in the same period of the 2010-11 oil year.

Oil year runs from November to October.

In the first four months of the 2011-12 oil year, import of edible oil rose to 30.02 lakh tonnes from 26.13 lakh tonnes, while that of non-edible oil fell to 58,519 tonnes from 80,275 tonnes, the SEAI said in a statement today.

According to SEAI, import of RBD palmolein has jumped 300 per cent due to low export duty on refined edible oil and high export duty on crude palm oil (CPO).

“In February 2012, import of RBD palmolein shoot up to over 3 lakh tonnes from an average of 1.1 lakh tonnes in earlier three months, thanks to lower duty on RBD palmolein (8 per cent) and higher duty on CPO (16.5 per cent) introduced by the Indonesian Government,” it pointed out.

The situation is likely to continue unless India takes some corrective steps including change of tariff value and raising the import duty on refined oils, SEA said.

India imports about 50 per cent of domestic requirement. The country imports palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, while soyabean oil is imported from Brazil and Argentina.

Over 8.67 million tonnes of vegetable oil was imported in 2010-11 oil year. At present, there is zero duty on imports of crude edible oil, but import of refined edible oil attracts 7.5 per cent Custom duty.