The Hindu : Business : Malaysia praises India's move on palm oil tariff

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 05, 2006

Business

Business

Malaysia praises India's move on palm oil tariff

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia, a top exporter of crude palm oil has lauded India's move to lower the base import prices of the commodity but said it was of the view that New Delhi's tax regime still favoured rival soyabean oil.

India has cut the base import price of crude palm oil to $417 from $433 a tonne.

The price of soyabean was cut to $497 from $510 a tonne.

"After the reduction we can see soyabean oil is still much favoured in India's tax regime. There would be reason to cheer if the Indian government had accorded palm oil the same level of treatment as soyabean imports, but this is not the case," Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister, Peter Chin, was quoted by the Straits Times daily as saying.

However, the minister noted that the import price reduction would make the commodity cheaper and Malaysia would need to increase its market share in India to really benefit from this move. India is the world's largest importer of edible oil.

"Malaysian palm oil players need to work harder to recapture market share they had lost to Indonesia," Mr. Chin said.

Indonesia now supplies about 70 per cent of India's demand of crude palm oil while the balance is imported from Malaysia, the paper said.

Malaysia and Indonesia produce 80 per cent of the world's palm oil output. — PTI

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