India's palm oil imports dropped 1.4 percent to 918,675 tonnes in September from a year earlier as higher duties and a depreciating rupee made imports more expensive, a leading trade body said on Tuesday. Soyoil imports dropped 4.4 percent to 341,402 tonnes in September, while sunflower oil imports dropped nearly a quarter from a year ago to 149,930 tonnes, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) said in a statement.
India is the world's biggest importer of edible oils. Its total vegetable oil imports eased 2 percent to 1.42 million tonnes in September, it added. In the first 11 months of the 2017/18 marketing year ending October, India has imported 7.95 million tonnes of palm oil, down 7 percent from a year ago, the SEA said.