India's Jan palm oil imports jump 31% on lower import tax - trade body
12.02.2021 (www.agriculture.com) - MUMBAI, Feb 12 (Reuters) - India's palm oil imports jumped 31% in January from a year earlier as lower import taxes prompted refiners to increase purchases of the tropical oil, while soyoil and sunflower oil imports fell, a trade body said on Thursday.
The country imported 780,741 tonnes of palm oil last month, while soyoil imports plunged 66% to 88,667 tonnes "as truckers strikes in Argentina seriously affected loading during November," the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.
India in late November slashed the import tax on crude palm oil (CPO) to 27.5% from 37.5%, as New Delhi tried to bring down rising food prices.
The CPO imports jumped 24% to 2.17 million tonnes in the first quarter of the 2020/21 marketing year started on Nov. 1 due to the duty reduction, the SEA said.
The country's sunflower oil imports fell 32% to 205,227 tonnes in January, it added.
India buys palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia, while other oils including soyoil and sunflower oil are sourced from Argentina, Brazil, Ukraine and Russia.
India's palm oil imports could fall in February as the government has changed the duty structure in its annual budget presented on Feb. 1, a Mumbai-based dealer with a global trading firm said.
After the changes, CPO imports would effectively attract 35.75% tax against 30.25% previously.
"Palm oil has lost duty advantage it had over rival oils with the duty change," the dealer said. (Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Devika Syamnath)