20.01.2020 (The Edge Markets MY) - KUALA LUMPUR: India’s palm oil imports grew almost 11% in December compared with that in the previous month but the country’s purchases from Malaysia declined.

Malaysian palm oil exports to India in November totalled 183,914 tonnes, a significant drop of almost 40% to 110,562 tonnes in December 2019, according to figures by trade group Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) of India last week.

In December 2019, Malaysia’s share of India’s imports of 741,490 tonnes of palm oil was 110,562 tonnes, consisting of 102,542 tonnes of crude palm oil, 5,020 tonnes of refined oil and 3,000 tonnes of crude palm kernel oil (CPKO).

Based on SEA data, a back-of-envelope calculation showed India’s imports of Malaysian RBD palm olein (refined, bleached and deodorised forms of palm oil) decreased 87.9% month-to-month to 5,020 tonnes in December 2019, from 41,600 tonnes in November.

In comparison, India bought more Indonesian RBD palm olein during the same period, up 11.1% to 89,796 tonnes, from 80,809 tonnes, based on data sighted on SEA’s website.

This upped India’s total imports of RBD palm olein by 43.6% to 217,225 tonnes in December, from 122,409 tonnes in the month before.