Iran is silently emerging as India's biggest destination for oil meal exports. As per the latest figures issued by the Solvent Extractors' Association (SEA) of India, Iran imported 97,904 tons of oil meals in April 2012 compared to 50,022 tons in April 2011, up by 95.72 percent making it the largest importer of oil meals from India during the month.

 

Looking at the data for one year period, Iran imported a total of 230,760 tons of oil meals during April-March 2011-12, which is higher by 31.22 percent against 175,846 tons in 2010-11.

 

However, the imports rose sharply during the last quarter of the year. In the month of March 2012 alone, India's oil meal exports to Iran had jumped by close to 164 percent to 39,798 tons from 15,077 tons in same month last year.

 

"The sanctions on Iran has helped Indian oil meal exporters to shift focus from China to Iran as China has stopped oil meal imports from India since January this year," said B V Mehta, executive director, SEA.

 

Adding further he mentioned that over the past few years, Middle East region has emerged as a major market for India's oil meal exports.

 

"Two years back we had taken a delegation of exporters and traders to Middle East including Iran to explore the market there. The growth in exports to this region is a result of that effort," added Mehta.

 

Factors such as lower crop of soybean in Brazil, a major growing region for the commodity was a key driver for price rise in oil meals due to widening demand-supply gap in the international market.

 

The average international price for oil meals have increased in the range of 15 to 25 per cent. Soybean meal prices jumped from US $ 408 per ton (FAS/FOB/Indian port) in April 2011 to US $ 509 per ton in April 2012, up by 24 percent.

 

During April to March period of 2011-12, Middle East region imported 610,116 tons of oil meals from India, which is 90 percent higher than 320,504 tons reported in 2009-10. India's oil meal export to Asian region stood at 45,26,089 tons during March-April 2012, which is higher by close to 50 percent from 28,45,794 tons in 2009-10. Meanwhile, India's total oil meal exports rose by 71.2 percent from 3,224,787 tons in 2009-10 to 5,522,312 tons in 2011-12. "For India, there is no restrictions put by the United Nations on trade with Iran. It is individual restrictions put by America and European nations that restricts trade with Iran.

 

Therefore, we can look forward for bright prospects for oil meal exports in this country," said Mehta.
 

(Source: business-standard.com)