Bangladesh may reduce import duties on vegetable oils

The Ministry of Commerce of Bangladesh will propose to the National Board of Revenue (NBR) to reduce the import duty on rapeseed, sunflower and olive oil from 32% to 10%. This is reported by the Grain On-Line agency with reference to The Daily Star. This will increase the supply of vegetable oils after Indonesia, the world's largest supplier of palm oil, restricted its exports. Indonesia provides 85% of the annual consumption (about 1.1 million tons) of crude palm oil in Bangladesh. Speaking to The Daily Star, Tapan Kanti Ghosh, senior secretary at the Commerce Department, said he would send a letter of recommendation to NBR in a day or two asking for a 22% reduction in the fee. According to him, this will be done mainly to encourage importers to buy rapeseed and sunflower oil and avoid interruptions in the supply of edible oil in the domestic market. The price gap between soybean oil and palm oil in local markets has recently remained minimal. Thus, the country could switch to ...