April 19, 2011

India's FY11 oilmeal exports to Japan surge more than twofold

Exports of oilmeals from India to Japan in FY11 jumped more than twofold to 1.259 million tonnes as the latter country prefers non-genetically modified (GM) crop produced by India, an industry body said.

India had shipped 475,000 tonnes of oilmeal (used as cattle and poultry feed) in FY10 fiscal, according to the Mumbai-based Solvent Extractors Association (SEA).

He noted that India is basically a non-GM crop producer when it comes to oilseeds, while other major producing nations like Argentina, the US and Brazil largely produce GM crops.

Among the shipment of oilmeals to Japan, the soymeal export has increased the most. Soymeal shipments in FY11 have increased by 169% to 1.241 million tonnes compared to 461,000 tonnes in the year-ago period.

"Japan is a good market for soymeal exports and I feel that we can achieve an average growth of 10% annually," Soyabean Processors Association of India (SOPA) coordinator Rajesh Agarwal told PTI.

Similarly, demand for Indian oilmeals (soybean and rapeseed) in EU also increased fivefold to 299,770 tonnes in FY11 compared with 58,489 tonne in the corresponding period of the previous year, Mehta added.

The soymeal exports to Europe in the past fiscal year have increased by more than sixfold to 211,389 tonnes as against 28,607 tonnes in the year-ago period.

"Though the export growth of soymeal is huge to Europe but the quantity is still less, however, it is a big market and there is good potential to increase the shipments," Agarwal said.