Bangladesh is importing more edible oil now than ever before to meet the rising consumption, industry officials said yesterday.
Increasing income and population growth have fuelled the consumption of vegetables oils, particularly palm and soybean, in a country that suffers from a large deficiency of domestic production of oilseeds.
Bangladesh, which has a population of 16 crore, consumed 23 lakh tonnes of vegetable oil in fiscal 2015-16, up 11 percent year-on-year, according to a report released by the US Department of Agriculture this month.
The import of vegetable oils rose 10 percent year-on-year to 20.4 lakh tonnes in fiscal 2015-16, according to the USDA.
“Import and consumption are rising because of gradual improvement in the overall standards of living,” said Bishwajit Saha, general manager of City Group, one of the biggest commodity processors and marketers in Bangladesh.
City markets its cooking oil under the brand name of Teer.
“People’s tendency to have fast food is rising in addition to increasing household consumption.”
Some industrial sectors also use vegetable oil, particularly palm oil, for making snacks such as potato chips and Bombay mix, a traditional snack, according to Saha.
Sweetmeat makers use edible oil, while the paint industry requires vegetable oil too, he added.
The per capita oil consumption now stands at nearly 11 litres a year, which was 8 litres five years ago, said Shoeb Md Asaduzzaman, head of sales and marketing of Bangladesh Edible Oil, a leading marketer of cooking oil.
“People now have more diversified food habits than in the past because of rising income.”
The domestic production of oilseeds is rising but still remains much lower than demand.
Locally, oilseed production rose 10.67 percent to 9.34 lakh tonnes in fiscal 2014-15 from a year earlier, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
Asaduzzaman expects the per capita oil consumption to accelerate to 15 litres in a decade from now.
“Consumption will rise further thanks to income growth,” he said, adding that demand for branded oil, including BEOL’s Rupchanda, is rising.
To cater to the increasing demand, BEOL in June bought all shares, assets and liabilities of Shun Shing Edible Oil Ltd for Tk 150 crore, he said.
In January 2013, Hong Kong-based SSEOL, which has refineries in the Mongla seaport area, launched soybean oil under the brand name of Veola in Bangladesh.
With the purchase of SSEOL, the processing capacity of BEOL has risen to 1,600 tonnes a day from its previous 600 tonnes, according to the official.
Bangladesh’s refineries can process nearly 40 lakh tonnes of vegetable oil, mainly crude palmolene and crude degummed soybean oil, a year.
Processors mainly import palm from Malaysia and Indonesia and soybean from Brazil and Argentina to meet the domestic demand, according to Saha.
Low commodity prices allowed the country to have lower import bills — of Tk 10,408 crore — for edible oil in fiscal 2015-16, down from Tk 12,223 crore the previous year, according to Bangladesh Bank.
Source: The Daily Star
