With customs revenue from oil imports now touching more than Rs.30,000 crores per annum, Solvent Extraction Assocaition (SEA) has demaned that a part of this money should be diverted to Oilseed Development Fund.
In a letter written to SEA member, Atul Chaturvedi, president, SEA has said that the reduction in the duty difference between CPO and Palmolein imported from Malaysia has the potential of sounding the death knell of our domestic Industry. “The notification issued late at night on 31st December has reduced the duty difference between CPO and Palmolein from 10% to 5% on Palmolein to be imported from Malaysia. However, this concession is not available to Palmolein coming from Indonesia or any other ASEAN nation.
This will result in a piquant position as the same oil will attract different duties from different origins. The duty reduction has reduced the effective duty difference between CPO & RBO Palmolein to just 5% against previous 10%,” he said, adding, “Before we could recover from this first blow, we received a second blow by way of abnormal reduction in tariff value on crude palm oil and RBD Palmolein. The current revision of tariff value on 15th January 2019 on crude palm oil and RBD palmolein is out of sinc and needs to be immediately corrected to be in the line with market price. It is needless to mention, due to reduction in duty difference between CPO and RBD Palmolein to 5% w.e.f. 1.1.2019, the industry is already facing serious threat of closure and with lower tariff value difference, the refiners will be in great trouble to operate their refinery and may be forced to close down, leading to shortage of edible oil supply.”
FSSAI notification about blended vegetable oil
Since, 1992, the Government has allowed the blending of edible oils with a stipulation of blending of two edible oils with minimum 20%. Recently, the Government has issued a draft notification suggesting that blended edible oils should have balance of SFA:MUFA:PUFA in rage of 1:1-1.5:1 with ideal ratio of omega 3 to omega 6. “It is not feasible to manufacture the blended oil in the given ratio with blend of only two oils. If these standard are taken forward, all blended edible oil manufacturing companies will have no choice but to close their units. The Association has strongly represented to FSSAI to remove this compulsions of fatty acid ratio,” said Chaturvedi in the SEA letter.
Need to allow export of Rapeseed / Mustard Oil in bulk
Under the vegetable oils sector; only rapeseed oil/mustard oil is subjected to the condition of maximum pack size 5 kgs. for export. All the other vegetable oils are permitted to be freely exported irrespective of pack size. “This condition on rapeseed oil/mustard oil is very detrimental to its trade in the international market. It also adversely affects the farm price of rapeseed/mustard seed and thus decreases the earning potential of rapeseed/mustard seed farmers. Further, the Agri Export Policy 2018 aims to remove all the earlier export restrictions on all the agri products. In view of all the above, we have requested Ministry of Commerce to issue Notification permitting exports of rapeseed oil / mustard oil in bulk without any restrictions of pack size. This will greatly benefit the farmers, who would be harvesting the crop in the next two months,” said Chaturvedi.
Source: Economic Times
