India, the world’s biggest buyer of vegetable oils after China, imported a record quantity of cooking oils last month as palm oil prices declined and local demand rose.
Purchases exceeded 700,000 tonnes, with palm oil making up more than 90 per cent of the total, Dinesh Shahra, managing director of Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd, India’s biggest importer, said in a phone interview today.
There was a rush to import and stockpile as prices dropped and most people expected government to impose duty, Shahra said. The South Asian country in April scrapped the tax on crude palm oil imports to bolster supplies and curb prices.
An increase in purchases by India may help support palm oil prices that have climbed to a three-month high in Malaysia, the second-biggest producer of the commodity. The vegetable oil slid 53 per cent in the second half of 2008, after reaching a record in March, as production exceeded demand.
March-delivery palm oil advanced as much as 4.1 per cent to 1,998 ringgit ($559) a tonne in Kuala Lumpur after the Malaysian Palm Oil Board said today stockpiles in December dropped from a record and exports rose to the highest, fuelled by Indian demand.
Stockpiles declined 12 per cent to 1.99 million tonnes, while exports climbed to 1.61 million tonnes, the board said.
India bought 519,032 tonnes of palm oil in November, up from 347,320 tonnes a year earlier, the Solvent Extractors’ Association said last month. Crude palm oil purchases climbed 1 per cent to 363,578 tonnes from a year ago, the association said.
The government imposed a 20 per cent duty on crude soybean oil imports in November to shield oilseed growers from duty-free purchases, while allowing crude palm oil at zero duty. The nation didn’t import any soybean oil in November.
