Kolkata
The cooking oil national industry body — Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA) of India has suggested immediate initiation of government to government (G2G) dialogue with Indonesia on the proposed palm oil export ban from April 28 by them as it would have an adverse repercussions in India.
Indonesia, which is the world’s largest producer of palm oil and meets nearly 50 per cent of the total palm oil requirement in India annually, had announced to ban exports till further notice apparently to contain edible oil prices in their domestic market.
“We have suggested our government initiate dialogue with Indonesian counterparts at the highest diplomatic level on the cooking oil export ban. This will have serious repercussions in our domestic market as half of our total imports of palm oil is from Indonesia and no one can fill up this void,” SEA director-general B V Mehta told PTI.
SEA liaisons with the Union Food ministry, he said. Mehta said, “the industry was not expecting a ban. There will be an immediate impact on prices in the domestic market from Monday itself as the news of the ban has distorted the sentiment.”
The cooking oil industry was prepared for a tweak in export duty at worst by Indonesia which is grappling with its cooking oil price spike in their domestic market by about 40-50 per cent. Indonesia was levying USD 575 per tonne export duty.
“The news will push Malaysia oil prices higher which is our major alternate sourcing market,” Mehta said. “India consumes 22.5 million tonnes of edible oil annually of which 9-9.5 million tonnes is met by domestic supplies and the rest by imports. About 3.5-4 million tonnes of palm oil is imported by India annually from Indonesia,” he said.
