India's oilmeals exports down by 52% in FY16

Country's oilmeals exports dropped by 52 per cent to 11.84 lakh tonnes in financial year 2015-16 as against 24.65 lakh tonnes in the previous year, due to sharp fall in soyabean shipments, industry body SEA said today.
In value terms, the exports fell by 65 per cent to Rs 1,510 crore as compared to Rs 4,298 crore in the 2014-15 period.
"Lower production of soyabean coupled with high price in domestic market resulted in to drastic fall in crushing, leading to disparity in export of soyabean meal," the Solvent Extractors' Association (SEA) said in a statement.
Exports to South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Iran, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia drastically reduced in 2015-16 due to price disparity owing to severe competition from other origins including China and Argentina.

India lost Vietnam market for soyabean meal due to stiff competition from other origins and increased availability from domestic crushing of imported soyabean, it said.
The country has totally lost the European market. Even Iran has shifted soyabean meal buying from India to other countries, while Bangladesh -- which largely imported soyabean meal and rapeseed meal from India -- has now moved to import of soyabean for domestic crushing.

Similarly, Pakistan has also started importing soyabean apart from rapeseed for domestic crushing, SEA added.
As per the SEA data, soyabean meal exports has dropped to 70,820 tonnes in 2015-16 fiscal from 6,59,593 tonnes, while rapeseed meal shipments fell to 3,31,201 tonnes from 10,67,159 tonnes in the said period.

Export of castorseed meal has fallen slightly to 4,56,319 tonnes in 2015-16 from 4,58,406 tonnes in the year-ago. Even groundnut meal exports fell to 1,102 tonnes from 3013 tonnes in the said period.
However, the shipment of rice bran extraction increased to 3,24,999 tonnes in 2015-16 from 2,77,492 tonnes in the previous year, the data showed.
Oilmeals export to South Koren fell by 24.29 per cent to 7,08,276 tonnes in 2015-16 as against 9,35,508 tonnes in the previous year. The shipments to Vietnam fell by 23 per cent to 2,85,165 tonnes from 3,27,128 tonnes in the said period.
Exports to other destinations like Thailand and Taiwan also dropped during the 2015-16.