Rapeseed Output in India May Decline 21% on Lower Area
20.05.12
(Updates with comment from analyst in fourth paragraph.)
Dec. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Rapeseed production in India, the world’s second-largest importer of cooking oils, may decline this year as winter rains elude the nation’s biggest growing region, hampering crop sowing, a processors’ group said.
Output may drop as much as 21 percent to 5.5 million metric tons in the crop year that started Oct. 1, from 7 million tons a year earlier, Vijay Data, vice president of the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India, said by phone from Jaipur. Lower production and rising domestic demand may boost vegetable oil imports to more than 9 million tons this year from 8.67 a year earlier, he said.
An increase in Indian purchases may help pare losses in Malaysian palm oil prices, heading for the first annual decline since 2008 on higher global production and concern that demand may be curbed by the European debt crisis. The South Asian nation meets almost 50 percent of its edible oil demand through imports and is the largest palm oil buyer from Indonesia and Malaysia, the top producers.
Source: BusinessWeek