Pakistan’s food imports have surpassed all records this fiscal year at $6.9 billion with 2 months remaining – and the toll already surpassing any 12-month period in history. Palm oil has consistently been Pakistan’s largest food import item with a 33 percent share in food imports averaged over last 10 years. Palm oil import share in total imports for 10M FY21 at 4.8 percent is the highest since FY13. This is despite wheat imports staging a grand comeback.
From what it appears, Pakistan is all set to record highest ever pam oil imports in terms of value, volume as well as price, for FY21 – keeping with what is a season of “highest-evers”. The import price had skyrocketed to $1000/ton for April 2021, comfortably the highest-ever, and coincided with all-time high monthly quantity imported.
The Palm Oil index as tracked by the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) shows the crude palm oil prices up 7 percent month-on-month, despite having dipped towards the end of May. Crude oil watchers put the recent downward trend to the Covid situation in India, any improvement in which is likely to push the prices back up. Future prices from yesterday, confirm the trend as palm oil was seen trading 4% higher from last month.
The MPOC also tracks inventory data for big regional palm oil importers, and that shows Pakistan’s palm oil ending stock in April at 194,000 tons was 40 percent lower than the same period last year, and 30 percent down from 12-month trailing monthly average. This could well be attributed to Ramadan related consumption, which was invariably higher this time than the last Ramadan, given the rather strict lockdown last year, which must have dented consumption.
That said, nothing suggests the consumption is going to taper off, especially with such low levels of ending stock. May imports could well beat April’s – given higher prices and likely continuation of high import quantities. At this rate, Pakistan’s palm oil import for FY21 are likely to cross $2.6 billion, beating the previous high of $2.3 billion recorded in FY13.
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