China imports more edible vegetable oil

Tag : vegetable

China imported more edible vegetable oil at higher cost in thefirst five months of this year, as demand remained strong at homeand prices were buoyed up by short supplies worldwide.

Between January and May, China imported 3.57 million tons of ediblevegetable oil, a year-on-year increase of 11.1 percent. Thearrivals were valued at $3.98 billion, up 94.7 percent, the GeneralAdministration of Customs said on Friday.

The import price averaged $1,114 per ton, up 75.2 percent.
The total imports included 2.07 million tons of palm oil, up 23.4percent, and 1.13 million tons of soya-bean oil, up 7.7 percent.The two combined to make up 89.6 percent of the total.

Most of the edible vegetable oil imports came from ASEAN members,which accounted for 2.33 million tons, or 65.2 percent, of thetotal.
Customs sources attributed the growing imports to strong demand andlimited production at home. Last year China consumed around 22.5million tons of edible vegetable oil but only produced 9 milliontons.

The supply gap was widened by natural disasters.

The severe winter weather in southern China and the May 12earthquake damaged vast plots of farmland sown to rape seed, thusaffecting domestic production of rapeseed oil.
Moreover, the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, which is amajor soya-bean production base, suffered droughts last year andhence had its soya-bean yield decline 30 percent.