Following the government decision to cut import duties on edible oil for controlling the rising prices, state owned PEC has floated two tenders to import more than 22,000 tonne of edible.
The first tender is for 12,000 tonne palm oil, which is to be imported from Indonesia and Malaysia. The second tender is towards imports in range of 10,000 – 20,000 tonne of crude soyabean oil from Argentina and Brazil. The oil has to be delivered during May.
According to a PEC official, the edible oils would be imported through ports in Kandal, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Kakinada & Cochin. Besides PEC, state owned – MMTC, State Trading Corporation & National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) also authorised to import edible oils. Meanwhile NAFED has also invited bids from reputed edible oil refiners having planted located at the port towns for processing and packaging of imported crude palm and soyabean oil.
Out of the 11 million tonne of edible oil consumption in the country, more than 5.5 million tonne is imported. The country imports about 1.5 million tonne of soyabean oil from Argentina and Brazil while about 3 million tonne of palm oil is imported annually from Malyasia and Indonesia. According to PEC, the Palm oil imported into India is consumed directly as ‘palm oil’ after refining, used in the manufacture of Vanaspati, for blending with other vegetable oil, crude oil and kernel oil for industrial purposes, etc.
The prices of the edible have seen a sharp rise in the last six months due to increase in palm oil prices globally. In a bid to curb rising prices of edible oil, the government last month had announced an import duty cut on crude palm oil from 45% to 20 % and that on refined palm oil from 52.5% to 27.5%.