India's palm oil imports in October 2024 increased by 60%

Increased purchases from the world's largest vegetable oil importer could lead to lower palm oil inventories in key producers Indonesia and Malaysia, supporting benchmark FCPOc3 futures prices. Indians have been celebrating the Dussehra and Diwali festivals in recent weeks, boosting consumption of sweets and fried foods. Soybean oil imports fell 11% to 341,818 tonnes and sunflower oil imports surged 56.5% to 239,116 tonnes in October 2024, the SEA said. Accordingly, edible oil imports in the 2023/24 marketing year ending October 31, 2024 fell to 15.96 million tonnes, from 16.47 million tonnes in the previous year, as abundant domestic oilseed production and rising prices dampened demand. For the year as a whole, total vegetable oil imports for the year were 16.2 million tonnes, down about 3% from a year earlier. Of this, soybean oil imports were 3.44 million tonnes, down 6.4%, and sunflower oil imports were 3.51 million tonnes, ...