India's share in world oilmeals export has also shrunk for most oil seeds. The situation is not expected to improve next year because this year's monsoon has not been good. Demand from south-east Asian countries, which traditionally have been a big market for Indian oilmeal, continues to be low.

Data released by the Indian Vanaspati Producer's Association reveals that in 1998-99, groundnutmeal export would go down to 0.61 million tonne from 0.21 million tonne the previous year. Although world export has also gone down in the period to 0.42 million tonne from 0.45 million tonne, the drop in India's export has been sharper and therefore the country's share in the total world trade in the sector has declined to 38.09 per cent from 46.67 per cent.

Despite a rise in the world export of sunflowermeal from 2.59 million tonne in1997-98 to 2.78 million tonne in 1998-99, India's exports have gone down from 0.05 million tonne to 0.02 million tonne, leading to a decline in world export share from 1.93 per cent to 0.72 per cent.

In rapeseed meal, Indian exports declined from 0.95 million tonne to 0.72 million tonne while world export declined from 2.94 million tonne to 2.80 million tonne. India's percentage in world share declined from 32.31 per cent to 25.71 per cent.

India's cottonseedmeal export remained stagnant at 0.01 million tonne in the year 1998-99. Since world exports went up to 0.68 million tonne from 0.65 million tonne last year, India's share in world trade fell from 1.54 per cent to 1.47 per cent.

It is only in soyabean that India's exports have actually gone up. Exports increased from 2.77 million tonne in 1997-98 to 2.97 million tonne in 1998-99. India's share in total world trade also showed a marginal increase from 8.19 per cent to 8.22 per cent.