India's Edible Oil Import Down 33 Pc In Mar.

India''s edible oil import dipped for the fifth consecutive month by 33 per cent to 4,12,088 tonnes in March, as against 6,12,293 tonnes in the same period previous year, the edible oil industry body SEA said today.

The country''s overseas purchase of edible oils for March have been lowest since the beginning of the 2010-11 oil year from November 2010, the Solvent Extractors'' Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.

Much decline was seen in import of edible oils such as crude palm oil, soyabean oil and RBD palmolein, it said.

According to SEA, the overseas purchase of crude palm oil was only 1,79,959 tonnes in March, as against 3,11,816 tonnes in the year-ago period.

Similarly, soyabean shipments came down to 81,131 tonnes from 1,45,996 tonnes, while that of RBD palmolein import fell to 73,768 tonnes from 95,227 tonnes in the period under review.

However, import of sunflower oil rose to 76,230 tonnes in March, compared to 52,744 tonnes in the year-ago period.

Meanwhile, the import of non-edible oils rose by 15 per cent to 23,647 tonnes last month from 20,575 tonnes in March 2010, the SEA noted.

The overall import of edible oil in the first five months of the 2010-11 oil year (November-October) was also lower at 30,24,496 tonnes, as against 35,85,280 tonnes in the previous year, the statement said.

India, the world''s largest vegetable oils buyer, had purchased a total of 92.41 lakh tonnes of vegetable oils in the 2009-10 oil year.

The country imports mainly palm oils from Indonesia and Malaysia, and small quantities of soyabean oil from Argentina and Brazil.

Source : in.news.yahoo.com