Photo by : Muhammad Ridho Hardiansyah / Sawitfest 2021
Palmoilmagazine, MUMBAI – To get palm cooking oil needs, India is blocked by imports. Two third of the demands should be imported. Palm cooking oil played about 60 - 65% of the total imports.
Though vegetable oil imports in India got decreasing but the domestic procurement increased in 2020-21, the vegetable oil import value in the country kept increasing because of the increasing commodity price. The vegetable oil production in the country also increased to fulfill the decreasing imports in the past few years.
Since Covid-19 pandemic happened, vegetable oil price got better. Lockdown, supply chain issue, worker migration caused the increasing price. The second wave of Covid-19 and the fast, increasing demands did increase the price.
In the beginning, Covid-19 lockdown, the lack of workers in Malaysia, increasing mandate of vegetable oil, dry season in South America, and increasing demands from China to pile up CPO did bother vegetable oil supply.
The war between Russia and Ukraine which still happens also muffle the sentiment. India imported 1,744 million tons of vegetable oil from Ukraine and 348 thousand tons from Russia in 2020/2021.
Meanwhile, according to palm oil markets, India would be having the increasing compound annual growth rate (CAGR) about 9,8% in 2021 – 2026.
Bhavna Shah of Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) noted, the Government of India worked hard to muffle the increasing inflation. Incoming taxes had been revised many times. Import policies about processed palm oil had been substituted from ‘limited’ to be ‘free’. Additional price control mechanism, such as, freezing tariff value, letting limit stocks, and postponing vegetable oil and seeds oil exchange also ran and adopted
But everything did not come as it was hoped to muffle the expensive price. This led the government to launch National Edible Oil Mission – Oil Palm (NEOM-OP). in the program, the Government of India prepared US$ 1,49 billion (Rs. 11.040 Crore) to reduce imports and realize vegetable oil self-sufficiency. (T2)
