India’s Edible Oil Import Falls 12% in November/September 2019/2020

The country’s import of edible oils dropped 12 percent in the first 11 months of the oil year 2019-20. (The oil year is a 12-month period that starts in November and ends in October).  A press statement by Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) of India said that the country imported 11.95 million MT of edible oil during November-September of 2019-20 period as against 13.58 million MT in the corresponding period of 2018-19.  

SEA said that the reduction in the import of edible oils was mainly due to demand destruction since April from HoReCa (hotels, restaurants and catering) segment hitting lower import of palm products. Import of palm oil (which includes RBD palmolein, crude palm oil, crude olein, and crude palm kernel oil) decreased to 6.4 million MT during the review period from 8.6 million MT in a similar period in prior year.   It said that the overall import of RBD palmolein decreased to 0.416 million MT from 2.6 million MT.  Import of RBD palmolein had seen reduction since it was placed under the Restricted List with effect from January 8.