15/11/06  (RTTNews) - The import of edible oil into India went down by 12% in the oil year 2005-06, November-October, in view of higher domestic output, whereas the import non-edible vegetable oils grew sharply by 73%.

The import of vanaspati, however, spurted by 50% to 3 lakh tonne in 2005-06 from around 2 lakh tonne in 2004-05. On the whole, the vegetable oil imports dropped marginally by around 4%. Among the edible oils too, the share of palm oils in the total imports dropped marginally by 2% to 58% and that of soft oil spurted by the similar margin to 42%.

The estimates put the total edible oil imports in 2005-06 at 44.2 lakh tonne, down 12% from 50.4 lakh tonnes in 2004-05. The import of non-edible oils in 2005-06 was estimated at 7.1 lakh tonne, up 73% from 4.1 lakh tonne in the previous year. Similarly, the total vegetable oil imports, including vanaspati, were assessed at 54.3 lakh tonne in 205-06, compared to 56.5 lakh tonne in 2004-05, marking a slide of 4%.

The Solvent Extractors' Association of India attributed the reduction in total vegetable oil imports to higher domestic oilseed production in 2005-06 and large carryover inventory of rapeseed-mustard held by the National Agricultural Co-operative Marketing Federation. These stocks became available for crushing in the last four months, resulting in lower imports.

Notably, though the imports of crude palm oil remained almost at the same level as in the previous year, those of other palm products registered a drop. These products include refined, bleached and de-odorized palmolein, crude palmolein and crude palm kernel oil, among others. As a result, total import of palm products fell from 30 lakh tonnes in 2004-05 to 225.7 tonne in 2005-06, registering a decreased of 14%.

The total imports of soft oil, such as soybean ad sunflower oil, was estimated at 18.48 lakh tonne, compared with a little over 20 lakh tonne in the previous year.