India’s oilmeal exports nosedive by record 94% in Oct

Deepak Kumar | The Dollar Business

Oilmeal exports in October sank to a record 94% due to a sharp decline in soyabean crushing shipments and less import by the key Asian markets. Exports last month came down to just 13.7 thousand tonnes from 238 thousand tonnes in October 2014. Overall oilmeal exports during April-October 2015 also declined by 40% to 763 thousand tonnes from 1.26 million tonnes recorded during the corresponding period of last year. Expressing concern over the slowdown in global trade, industry leaders have urged the government to reform its exports policy and come out with incentives plans to support Indian oil manufactures. “The government needs to restructure the export policy. The current trend is not supporting Indian oil manufacturers. Import is being boosted because of the price competition and the government’s pro-import policy,” Ankit Bansal, owner of Rudrapur Solvents Pvt. Ltd. told The Dollar Business. According to the Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA), exports of soyabean meal fell to an all-time low by 66% so far during the current year.   India exported just over 46.9 thousand tonnes of soyabean meal during the first seven months of 2015-16 as compared to last year’s 140,098 tonnes. “Soybean crushing is very much reduced due to continuous disparity and high price of domestic market affecting overall domestic availability of both oils and meals,” the SEA said in a release. “The robust pace of soybean crushings and ample soybean supplies both in the northern and the southern hemisphere kept world market prices of soya meal under pressure and sharply below the year-earlier levels,” the association said. One of the main reasons was attributed to India’s high oilmeal prices, which prompted Asian importers to switch to other South American countries for meeting their oil demand. Soyabean meal price in India is around $500 per tonne, whereas in countries like Argentina and Brazil, the average prices continue to oscillate around $360-370 per tonne.   September remained the only month in 2015-16 when oilmeal exports recorded a positive growth of 4%.  

November 07, 2015 | 2:52pm IST.