16/1/06 ZHENGZHOU (Asia Pulse) - Despite decrease of import of soybean oil, by nearly one million tons and that of rapeseed oil, by 120,000 tons, China's consumption of oil crops for extracting oil increased as a whole in the 2004/2005 crop year, thus increasing the supply of edible oil as a whole in the year.

China imported 1.73 million tons of soybean oil in the year, a adecrease of 990,000 tons year on year; 210,000 tons of rapeseed oil, a decrease of 120,000 tons; 4.32 million tons of palm oil, an increase of 750,000 tons. Total import of the above mentioned vegetable oils decreased by 360,000 tons as compared with in the previous year.

In terms of consumption for oil extraction in the year, consumption of home-grown soybean is estimated to be 7.5 million tons, an increase of 1.56 million tons year on year or equal to 260,000 tons of soybean oil; import of soybean is estimated to be 24 million tons, an increase of 5.5 million tons or equal to 990,000 tons of soybean; consumption of rapeseed, 12.5 million tons, an increase of 1.5 million tons or equal to 540,000 tons of rapeseed oil; consumption of peanut oil, 6.7 million tons, an increase of 100,000 tons or equal to 30,000 tons of peanut oil; and consumption of cottonseed, 9 million tons, an increase of 1.7 million tons or equal to 250,000 tons of cottonseed oil. The output of sunflower seed, sesame and flax seed oils in the year almost equals to that in the previous year. Total output of above mentioned vegetable oils increased by 2.07 million tons year on year.

Based on all these, it is predicted that China's edible oil supply newly increased by 1.71 million tons in the 2004/2005 crop year, while the consumption increased by 1.77 million tons. The supply gap of 60,000 tons has been filled by inventory carried over from the previous year.