November 11, 2008
Soy oil takes over as major edible vegetable oil in China
Soybean oil has taken the place of rapeseed oil to become the major edible vegetable oil in China.
According to statistics, China produced 18.985 million tonnes of edible vegetable oil in 2007, an increase of 1.683 million tonnes over the previous year.
Included were 10.686 million tonnes of soy oil, 3.292 million tonnes of rapeseed oil, 888,000 tonnes of peanut oil and 720,000 tonnes of cottonseed oil.
Of the total output, soy oil accounted for 56.3 percent, while rapeseed oil, peanut oil and cottonseed oil made up 17.3 percent, 4.7 percent and 3.8 percent of the total respectively. First-class oil took up 61.4 percent of the total output with 11.664 million tonnes.
CAGS' standing vice chairman Wang Ruiyuan said China's grain and oil industry maintained an upward trend in 2007. The number of edible vegetable oil processing enterprises each with annual sales revenue above RMB5 million had increased from 83 to 1,095. The average output of edible oil enterprises rose to 17,338 tonnes from the previous year's 17,097 tonnes. The oil and fat refining ratio grew from 68.6 percent to 72.7 percent.
Wang stated that the number of grain and oil processing enterprises will further decrease and the size of enterprises will enlarge gradually, along with intensified market competition and the structural adjustment and optimization of enterprises.
CAGS statistics show that the country's top 10 edible vegetable oil processing enterprises in term of daily processing capacity produced a combined 8.49 million tonnes of edible oil in 2007, accounting for 44.7 percent of the total output of large enterprises.
