India's oilmeal exports to Japan, Asia's top feedstocks market, is likely to halve in March due to uncertainty over shipments to the disaster-hit nation, an Indian industry official said on Tuesday. India sells about 100,000 tonnes of feedstocks a month to Japan. "About 50,000 tonnes of soyameal shipments were booked for Japan in the first half of March," said Rajesh Agrawal, a co-ordinator for Soyabean Processors Association of India, adding no further orders for the rest of the month had been placed.
He said the reason for this was disruptions and uncertainties in shipment to the country hit by a major earthquake and tsunami. Japan bought 1.11 million tonnes of oilmeals, mostly soyameal, from India in the eleven month period from Apr. 1, 2010, according to the monthly update of the Mumbai-based trade body Solvent Extractors' Association of India.
"The fall in exports to Japan will be temporary and will revive as soon as the country comes out of the shocks of devastation," Agrawal said. Japanese feedstock makers prefer soyameal and rapeseed meal from India as they are non-genetically modified. Agrawal said oilmeal overall exports from India, which more than doubled last month, would continue to be higher in March as demand from traditional buyers in Southeast Asia and China would continue to be robust. "We still expect about 400,00O tonnes of soyameal exports in March despite the setback from Japan," he said. India sold 224,407 tonnes of oilmeals, including 163,666 tonnes of soyameal, in March last year.
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