India’s cooking oil imports will fall for the third year in a row due to rising prices

By Rajendra Jadhav

Mumbai, May 10 (Reuters) – India’s edible oil imports will fall for the third year in a row on the back of rising supply of local oilseeds and rising demand for vegetable oil, a data center said on Tuesday.

The world’s largest importer of cooking oil is likely to buy 12.9 million tonnes overseas in the 2021/22 marketing year ending October 31, up from 13.13 million tonnes a year ago, PV Mehta said. India.

“For the third year in a row, normal monsoon rains in India increased domestic availability of cooking oil by 1.5 million tonnes and helped reduce imports,” Mehta told a Global conference in Dubai.

Consumption of edible oil in India has tripled in the last two decades, the population has grown, incomes have increased and restaurants have grown to cater to the crowds that have started eating out more often.

The country’s edible oil imports rose from 4 million to 15 million tonnes two decades ago, but fell in 2019/20 and 2020/21 after epidemic-related locks hit consumption.

In the current business year, the government has lifted restrictions, but record prices are stifling consumption, Mehta said.

India buys palm oil mainly from Indonesia and Malaysia, while soybean oil is mainly imported from Argentina and Brazil. It also buys sunflower oil from Russia and Ukraine. (Report by Rajendra Jadhav. Editing in Spanish by Marion Giraldo)