Cooking oil sold at supermarket. (Photo: VNA)
Vietnam’s total vegetable oil imports from the 2014-2015 marketing year are forecast to stand at 820,000-830,000 tonnes, as revealed in a study by the Vietnamese office of the US Department of Agriculture, reported the Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper.
There are currently 37 domestic enterprises producing cooking oil, salad oil, nutritional oil and solid oil to meet the increasing demands of consumers and food processing industry.
Palm oil has the largest market share with 70 percent while soybean makes up 23 percent and other vegetable oil 7 percent. Last year, the country produced a recorded amount of refined oil with nearly 738,400 tonnes, up 0.6 percent from 2013.
Refined oil productivity is expected to increase 10 percent to 812,000 tonnes in 2015 and 893,000 tonnes in 2016, spurred by the surge in soybean production. In addition, local oil producers continue to be protected by the Government’s safeguard import tariff against Malaysia and Indonesia: 4 percent from May 2014-May 2015 and falling to 3 percent from May 2015-June 2016.
According to the master plan for vegetable oil development by 2020, refinery capacity should soar to 1.59 million tonnes by 2020 and 1.93 million tonnes by 2025. Vegetable oil consumption per capita is forecasted to shoot up over 67.5 percent in the next five years.
Earlier, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MIT) said that Vietnam will continue its safeguarding measures over vegetable oils from foreign countries as growing imports have damaged domestic production.
Accordingly, refined soya oil and refined palm oil with trade codes of 1507.90.90, 1511.90.91, 1511.90.92, 1511.90.99 imported to Vietnam will be taxed at 3 percent from May 8, 2015 to May 7, 2016, at 2 percent from May 8, 2016 to May 7, 2017 and 0 percent after May 8, 2017.
Safeguard procedures will be implemented in line with current regulations on protective measures for imports.-VNA
