COMMODITY

SEA of India expresses dejection on budget proposal 2012-13

MoM Team / Mumbai, Mar 16, 03:23 PM

The premier Association of Vegetable Oil and Industry, SEA (Solvent Extractors Association ) of India has expressed their disappointment on latest budget announce by Finance Minister . The latest release from SEA of India stated that Finance Minister has not taken any steps to curb the mounting imports of refined vegetable oil to protect the domestic refinery industries.

SEA of India mentioned that with no change in tariff value in RBD Palmolein, the effective rate of custom duty will continue to be at around 3% as against the intended custom duty of 7.5%. Also, there is no incrase in custom duty on import of RBD Palmolein, which was requested for by the Association to counter the inverted duty structure of Indonesian Government for CPO (16.5%) RBD Palmolein (8%). This is evident from the fact that import RBD Palmolein already jumped up from monthly average of 1,00,000 tonnes to 3,00,000 tonnes in the month of Feb. This will surely call a death knell for Indian domestic vegetable oil refining industry. This will also cause unemployment of more than 1 lakh persons directly and affect more than 5 lakh people of ancillary industries. Apart from this, huge investment of nearly Rs.10,000 crores will be forced to remain unproductive.

Moreover, current budget has not covered any program to increase the production of domestic oilseeds . India is still highly dependent on imported vegetable oil.