The total exports of oilmeals touched a record level of 54.42 lakh tonne for the financial year 2007-08, indicating an increase of 5% over the previous year thanks to record soyabean production.
For 2006-07, total exports were registered at 51.70 lakh tonne. In the first half of the year, total export was declined due to lower oilseeds crop for season 2006-07. However, record soybean crop of 9.4 million tonne coupled with record price realisation in international market pushed up the export of oilmeals in the second half of 2007-08, according to the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA).
“The overall export earnings have jumped up by 65% from Rs 4,300 crores in 2006-07 to Rs 7,109 crores in 2007-08, thanks to better price realisation. The better FOB realisation has also given good support to domestic processing industry and nullified the impact of rupee depreciation,” BV Mehta, executive director, SEA said.
Export of oilmeals during March 2008 was reported at 8.53 lakh tonne compared to 7.55 lakh tonne in March 2007, up by 13% due to increase in exports of soybean meal, rapeseed meal, castor meal and groundnut meal.
Free on board (FOB) price realisation for soybean meal was increased to $407 per tonne in March 2008 from $269 per tonne in April 2007. Similarly, rapeseed meal realistion jumped to nearly ouble and reached at $233 per tonne from $129.
Groundnut meal FOB price increased to $320 from $220 a tonne and castor meal jumped to $141 from $70 in one year.
During the review period, Vietnam has increased the import of oilmeals from India and reported at 17.08 lakh tonne consist of 14.45 lakh tonne soybean meal, 70,523 tonne rapeseed meal and entire quantity of 1.92 lakh tonne of rice bran extraction.
China reduced the import from India due to better local crushing and imported 1.44 lakh tonne of rapeseed meal, 1.50 lakh tonne of soybean meal and 52,000 tonne of groundnut meal.