Major edible oil refiners have reduced their selling prices by around Rs 15 per 10 kg on Tuesday after the government lowered import duties by 5-10% on major edible oils effective from Monday.
?Refiners such as Ruchi Soya and Liberty Oil have reduced their selling prices by Rs 15-18 per 10 kg at the wholesale level. Crude Palm oil (CPO) prices are currently ruling around Rs 452 per 10 kg and soya oil degum prices are quoting around Rs 482 per 10 kg,? a local edible oil trader said.
Traders were expecting duty cut of 5% on CPO imports as against government?s announcement of 10% cut in CPO. The effective duty of RBD palmolein has been now revised to 54.08% (with the increase of 5% in duty) which will be highest in the edible oils basket, sources said.
?With the import duty gap of nearly 13-14% between crude and refined edible oils, imports of RBD palmolein will be unviable.
The duty cut should translate into fall in prices of palm oil by Rs 1.50 a kg, that of soybean oil by Re 1 a kg and sunflower oil by Rs 3 a kg, if the duty benefit is passed on to the consumer,? Mr BV Mehta, executive director, the Solvent Extractors? Association of India (SEAI) said.
During the eight months of current oil season 2007-08 (November 06/June 07), the country imported 27.49 lakh tonne of edible oils compared to 25.89 lakh tonne same period of last season, up by 6%. India imports palm oils from Malaysia and Indonesia and soy oil degum from South America.