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NEW DELHI, Aug 30 (Reuters) - India announced on Thursday it had fixed thebase import price of crude palmolein at $357 a tonne in a bid to preventunderinvoicing by importers and loss of duty revenues.The move was aimed at plugging a loophole that had allowed some importersto present invoices that were lower than the price at which they hadpurchased the oil, robbing the government of import duty revenues, traderssaid.Now any importer will have to pay duty assessed on an import price of $357a tonne for crude palmolein, no matter at what cost it was purchased.Devi Prasad Khandelia, chairman of Central Organisation for Oil Industryand Trade (COOIT), said the price fixed by the government was "fair" andwould not have any impact on overall imports."Crude palmolein was left out in the earlier order. This is part of themeasures to check underinvoicing," said B.V. Mehta, executive director ofthe Solvent Extractors' Association of India.FIXED BASE PRICES OF OTHER OILSThe government had earlier this month fixed the base import price of crudepalm oil at $337 a tonne and RBD palmolein at $372 a tonne. The base priceof RBD palm oil had been set at $351 a tonne.But it had not fixed the base import price of crude palmolein, leadingimporters to purchase the oil in place of other oils.Mehta said traders had in the last month imported between 15,000 to 20,000tonnes of crude palmolein, a sharp rise from small quantities they hadbought in the previous months."The aim of the government is to stop traders shifting from imports ofcrude palm oil to crude palmolein," Khandelia said. "It is to plug thisloophole that the government has fixed the base prices."Crude palm olein is mainly consumed by vanaspati or hydrogenated vegetableoil manufacturing units and refiners.India bought 2.03 million tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia last year.India's edible oil imports rose 16.3 percent to 3.49 million tonnes duringNovember to July but are likely to fall next year due to higher oilseedsoutput expected from the new crop.