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Mumbai: The government has asked state-run trading companies and co-operatives to stop edible oil imports on its behalf as domestic prices have stabilised ahead of the festival season. The government had last month asked the State Trading Corporation, MMTC Ltd, PEC Ltd and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation (NAFED) to import a total of 125,000 tonnes of edible oil to meet demand during festival season beginning September. Of the 125,000 tonnes of planned imports, 38,500 tonnes have already been contracted, the government said in a statement. NAFED had planned to import 2,000 tonnes of oils at prices around $899 a tonne, but MMTC has cancelled an import tender of 10,000 tonnes due to high price (of around $906 a tonne) quoted. NAFED had contracted to import 55,000 tonnes since April. Domestic prices of edible oil are ruling at around Rs500 per 10 kg, down Rs20 from August. This works out to around $1,272 per tonne. India, the world''''s second-biggest vegetable oil importer, harvested 16.83 million tonnes of oilseeds in the 2007 season, 3.38 million tonnes more than the year-ago, according to trade body Confederation Oil Industry and Trade. The government has not revised tariff values used to calculate import duty on edible oils since August 2006 to keep a lid on prices and has in fact cut the import duty on palmoil to 45 per cent and of soyoil to 40 per cent. India imports palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia and soy oil from Brazil and Argentina. Although the government has asked these companies not to buy on its behalf, they can import for their own commercial transactions.
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