India's vegetable oil imports in September rose 35.5 percent from a year earlier to an all-time high of 905,192 tonnes and imports were on track to set a new full-year record, a leading trading body said on Wednesday. The surge was led by an unexpected 39 percent rise in edible oils purchases from importers who were worried that the government was planning to levy a tax on imports.
"We are surprised with the latest figures. It happened as individual importers contracted higher expecting that the government would restrict duty-free imports by imposing taxes before the soybean harvest in October," Sandeep Bajoria, the chief executive of Mumbai-based trading firm Sunvin Group said.
Vegetable oil imports for the first 11 months of oil year from November were 7.98 million tonnes, up 47 percent from 5.43 million tonnes in the year-ago period, data from the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) showed. It projected the vegetable oil imports would rise to record levels above 8.5 million tonnes in 2008/09.
India, the world's leading importer of vegetable oils, imported 6.3 million tonnes in the previous year. A friendly tax regime and low global prices were the main reasons for the increase in imports, said B.V. Mehta, the executive director of the trade body. Monthly edible oil imports rose by 39 percent to 864,896 tonnes in September. Traders had expected edible oil imports to fall 4.5 percent to 585,625 tonnes in September from a year ago.