File Photo
At the end of April, traders opened bonds for the import of
about 90,000 tons of palm oil from Indonesia. Uncertainty over palm oil imports
erupted after the country imposed a ban on palm oil exports on April 28. Now,
with the announcement of the opening of Indonesia's export market, uncertainty
over the supply of palm oil has begun to subside. With Indonesia lifting its
export ban, prices of both palm oil and soybean oil are expected to improve.
On April 28, Indonesia banned palm oil exports. Last
Thursday (May 19, 2022) the country announced the lifting of the ban. The
country's president Joko Widodo said the export market would reopen on Monday,
25 days after the ban. Indonesia is the world's top producer and exporter of
palm oil.
According to Bangladesh Bank, about 90,000 tonnes of oil
import bonds were opened in the four days before the export ban was imposed.
The ban took effect before the oil was unloaded. As a result, these imports get
stuck.
In the first 10 months of the current 2021-22 fiscal year,
90 percent of palm oil imports in Bangladesh came from Indonesia. After the
country stopped exporting, traders were waiting for the ban to be lifted
without importing from alternative sources. On May 19, 2022, the news of
lifting the export ban has brought relief to the importers.
Shafiul Athar, director of TK Group, a leading importer of
edible oils, said, This news is definitely a relief for us. And it is no longer
a problem to get supply of bonds against which palm oil has not been imported.
It remains to be seen whether the country's official decision to lift the
embargo will be made or not.
After the start of the Russia-Ukraine war last February,
there was an unusual upsurge in the global commodity market. The prices of all
types of edible oils have gone up the most. Russia and Ukraine supply about
one-third of the world's sunflower oil, according to US agricultural estimates.
Palm and soybean oils are under pressure
as the supply of sunflower oil is cut off. Indonesia stopped exporting palm oil
at a time when prices were falling slightly in world markets. And that is why
the price of edible oil is recorded in the world market.
Soybean oil traded at USD 1,997 a tonne on the Chicago Board
of Commodity Exchange in the United States on the day of the Indonesian export
ban announcement (April 28). 1,700 excluding palm oil on the Malaysian
Commodity Exchange. Since then, the global market has been rising and falling.
However, the impression that Indonesia could open the export market had an
impact on the global market. Soybean oil traded at USD 1,775 per tonne in
Chicago on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, imports were declining due to rising palm oil
prices. Traders have unloaded 11.96 lakh tonnes of palm oil from the tank
terminal of Chittagong port till May 15 of the current financial year. They
unloaded 12 lakh 18 thousand tons of palm oil in the same period of last
financial year. In other words, the import has decreased by about 23 thousand
tons at this time.
|Source: Online/SZK
Comment Now