KUALA LUMPUR (Dow Jones)--India may import reduced volumes of vegetable oils in the marketing year that ends Nov. 30, as adequate monsoon rains boosted its production of oilseeds, including soybeans, groundnuts and rapeseed, top vegetable oils analyst Dorab Mistry said Wednesday.
"India will produce and consume more domestic oils in the current oil year and will trim imports for the first time in a decade," Mistry said at an international palm oil conference.
In the "oil year" spanning November 2009 to October 2010, India's production of vegetable oils fell to 6.62 million tons from 6.68 million tons in 2008-09.
India's vegetable oil imports will decline by 4% from the previous year to 8.8 million tons, although palm oil imports may rise to 7 million tons from 6.7 million tons, while soyoil imports may decline to 1 million tons from 1.7 million tons in the current marketing year, Mistry said.
India sources palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia and imports soyoil from Brazil and Argentina.
-By Shie-Lynn Lim, Dow Jones Newswires; +603 2026 1233; shie-lynn.lim@dowjones.
com