Indian Govt. has reduced the  Import duty on crude palm oil to 40 per cent from 44 per cent from Southeast Asian (Asean) countries after a request from suppliers, while on refined palm oil is import duty reduced to 50 per cent from 54 per cent. This makes total import duty on crude palm oil to 44 per cent and 55 per cent on refined palm oil including all taxes.

Palm oil has to be more competitive due to the duty reduction and this will lead to higher imports from January onwards.

Palm oil imports dropped 6.4 per cent from a year ago to 8.7 million tonnes in the 2017/18 marketing year ended in October, according to the Solvent Extractors’ Association (SEA). Plam prices also declined significantly last year due to higher production in Malaysia & Indonesia along with lower exports.

The effective duty difference between crude and refined palm oil has narrowed to 5.5 per cent from 11 per cent for shipments from Malaysia, which could lead to higher imports of refined palm oil.