A sharp jump in demand from the Iranian feed industry post-US sanctions has brightened the prospects for India's soymeal exports. According to the latest data released by the Solvent Extractors’ Association of India (SEA), soymeal exports to Iran for the year 2018-19 stood at 508,050 tonnes, far higher than 22,910 tonnes reported in the previous year.
With this, Iran emerges as the third largest importer of Indian oilmeals after South Korea (738,795 tonnes) and Vietnam (615,403 tonnes).
“The Iranian market has once again opened up for Indian soybean meal. It seems again Iranian feed industries are looking at India for their requirement of soybean meal, supporting export of oilmeals from India,” SEA said in its note.
The trade with Iran got a further boost after it revised its payment mechanism for India and started accepting payments from India in rupee and used that fund to pay for its imports from India.
Opening up of an export market has lifted India's overall soymeal exports from 11.87 lakh tonnes in 2017-18 worth ?2,909 crore to 13.37 lakh tonnes valuing ?3,831 crore in 2018-19.
According to the SEA data, rapeseed meal exports jumped by about 58 per cent to 10.51 lakh tonnes worth ?1,654 crore for the year under review from 6.64 lakh tonnes worth ?992 crore in the previous year.
“The export of rapeseed meal is sharply increased and was mainly exported to South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand,” said SEA.
The overall oilmeal exports during April 2018 to March 2019 is provisionally reported at 3,205,768 tonnes against 3,026,628 tonnes in the year-ago period -- up by 6 per cent.
Groundnut meal exports reported at 8,673 tonnes worth ?13 croreagainst 7,931 tonnes worth ?16 crore reported last year. The exports of castor seed meal and rice bran extract stood at 367,084 tonnes and 440,927 tonnes respectively.
Source :- Thehindubusinessline.com
