25/2/06 (Business Times) -- CHINA, the world's largest consumer of vegetable oils, may import 14 per cent more palm oil this year to meet demand for processed foods, LMC International, a London-based researcher says.

China ended quotas on palm oil imports this year.

"With the quotas dismantled from January 1, we expect growth this year of 14 per cent to 4.8 million tonnes," James Fry, managing director of LMC, told the Annual Palm and Lauric Oils Conference and Exhibition in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. "We will see imports of 5 million tonnes next year", an increase of 4.2 per cent from this year's forecast, he said.

Economic expansion in China is allowing people to indulge a taste for fried foods and lifting demand for palm oil produced by companies such as Malaysia's IOI Corp and Golden Hope Plantations Bhd. China, which the Government estimates grew 9.4 per cent last year, is the world's fastest-growing economy and is poised to overtake Britain as the world's fourth-largest economy.

China meets its vegetable oil demands largely by crushing soyabeans for meal, Fry said. - Bloomberg