India Is Likely To Import Additional Cooking Oil - Sep 04 , 2008

India is likely to import additional cooking oil in the year starting November as dry weather reduced monsoon sowing of peanuts, sunflower and sesame seeds. India is the world's biggest buyer of vegetable oils after China. Purchases may go up by at least 500,000 metric tonnes from 5.1 million tonnes this crop year ending October 31, said Govindlal G Patel, director of Dipak Enterprises, in an interview. Patel, 69, has been trading the commodity for more than four decades.

India imports more than 85 per cent of its edible oil in the form of palm oil for use in curries and fried foods. Prices of palm oil have tumbled 44 per cent from a March record of 4,486 ringgit ($1,303) a tonne, cutting import costs for the country that's battling the fastest inflation in 16 years. Spiralling food prices have caused Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress party to lose ground in nine of 11 state polls since January 2007. Singh faces elections in six more states this year and a national election by May 2009. Farmers planted peanuts on 5.03 million hectares, 2.3 per cent less from a year ago as of August 28, the farm ministry said. The area for sunflower seeds fell by 30 per cent to 495,000 hectares, and for sesame by 9 per cent to 1.36 million hectares. The seeds yield more oil when crushed than soybeans