Day: August 10, 2017

Pakistan is expected to import a record 1.6 million tonne soybean in 2016-17 and around 2 million tonne in 2017-18. Higher demand for soybean from Pakistan is seen coming from poultry feed sector in the country. The country soy oil import is expected to be around 200,000 tonne in 2016-17 compared with 184,000 tonne in 2015-16. For Soy oil 2017-18, import is pegged at 250,000 tonne. Pakistan palm oil import is pegged at 3.0 million tonne in 2016-17 against 2.7 million tonne in 2015-16, while palm oil import is seen at 3.1 million tonne in 2017-18. Pakistan is one of the largest edible oil importers in the world.

There are sufficient sugar stocks in India to take the country through the next sugar marketing year. This came amid reports that the government is contemplating another round of sugar imports to meet the anticipated high demand during the upcoming festival season. Sugar production fell below consumption in the 2016-17 marketing year. This had led to a surge in sugar prices, forcing the government to direct mills to maintain demand-supply balance and curtail the prices. The current prices are not higher than the previous year. The union government, which had increased the import duty on sugar to 50 per cent in July, is reportedly contemplating cutting it to 25 per cent and allowing import of sugar to augment supplies during the festival season.