Dhaka, Feb. 17 (AP) - Edible oil refiners have appealed to the FinanceMinister to cancel duty cuts on refined oil imports and remove duties fromimport of crude edible oils. In a memorandum on Sunday, BangladeshVegetable Oil Refiners and Vanaspati Manufacturers Association expressedtheir apprehension that the massive duty withdrawal from refined oilimports would pave the way for intrusion of inferior quality anddate-expired oil.Besides, it would endanger the existence of the country's refiningindustry that invested Tk 2000 crore and employed some 200,000 people, theAssociation said. The memorandum, signed by Association Chairman A RoufChowdhury, suggested that import of refined oil should be allowed only insealed bottles from internationally reputed suppliers to avoid import of"Chernobyl-type" unfit edible oils.The government on February 1 announced major duty cutbacks on refinededible oil imports as a countermeasure against soaring prices. TheNational Board of Revenue (NBR) slashed a total of 61 per cent duties onimport of refined edible oil. The duty cutbacks, aimed at stabilisingedible oil prices in the domestic market, angered the oil refiners who hadbeen arguing for long that they had no hand in the price-hike asinternational market is overheated. As prolonged parleys with refiners,wholesalers and retailers failed to bring down the edible oil price, thegovernment at last came up with the duty cut on refined oil.Earlier, the government reduced duty on crude oil imports to protect therefining industry. Price of crude soybean oil rose by 48 percent in sevenmonths to December - from US$395 per ton in May to $585 in December 2002.Palm oil prices soared from US$370 per ton in May to $492 in December lastyear, marking a 33 percent increase. Last year, a total of 411,000 tons ofcrude soybean and 420,000 tons of crude palm oils were imported -- 65percent higher than the country's annual consumption, according to figuresin the Ministry of Commerce.As of January 16 this year, stocks of crude soybean oil and palm oil were45,000 tons and 53,000 tons respectively. Commerce Ministry officialsbelieved that substantial quantity of the imported edible oil is smuggledto India where prices are very high.