All Pakistan Solvent Extractors Association (APSEA) has fixed the support price of sunflower at Rs.2,200 per 40kg to facilitate the growers. Addressing a press conference on Friday, Chairman of APSEA Mian Qaiser Shabbir Ahmed along with Khwaja Mehboob-ur-Rehman and Gul Muhammad Chaudhry said that association would continue to protect the rights of sunflower growers and it would not leave them at the mercy of beoparies for perpetual fleecing.
He said that APSEA had taken revolutionary steps to attract the growers and gave them incentives for promotion of oil-producing seeds. Qaiser said that growers are looking to the Government for fixation of support prices of sunflower but it is reluctant to do so; consequently, association took the initiative of fixation of support prices after evaluating the cost of production and interest of the growers.
He said that Pakistan is one of the largest importing countries of vegetable oil; it is importing edible of Rs.500 billion from different countries and it has already imported $1.83 billion (Rs.160.12 billion) worth of crude palm oil and palm-oil products during the 2010-11 from Malaysia.
He said: "In the first year, Indonesia's share should be about 35-40 percent and the year after that it will gain a major share in Pakistan's market." Pakistan is expected to at least triple palm oil purchases from Indonesia next year after a trade agreement between the two countries reduced import duties for the edible oil by about 15 percent, he added.
He said that import bill of palm oil is higher because of ease in the international price, higher domestic demand and cut in import duty. These factors encouraged import of palm oil, which recorded a growth of 40.96 percent in the first four months this year over the last year. 74.55 per cent growth was recorded in import of soya-bean oil.
He suggested that farmers should grow sunflower to earn three times more money than wheat because sunflower rate has increased to $630 per ton while wheat rate is merely $200 per ton. He said that it is not possible to increase the production of edible oil in Pakistan according to its requirement and saving the foreign exchange of Rs.500 billion per annum which can be used on development schemes like opening more schools, establishing hospitals and power-generating units. He assured that APSEA would give more incentives to the growers in due course of time.
The APSEA, however, feels that the import of soya meal from India is a serious threat to the existence of the solvent plants in Pakistan. Therefore, it has lodged a strong protest with the government. Chairman of APSEA demanded a complete ban on the import of soya meal from India and the imposition of anti-dumping duty against, what it called, flooding of the Indian meal, otherwise they would take the next course of action to decide their fate.
Solvent extractors are of the opinion that huge quantity of substandard meal is being imported from India, against the dumping prices of Rs.22,500 per tonne as against Rs.20,000 per tonne imported last year. The import of cheaper meal from the neighbouring countries is being made at the cost of the local solvent plants, he said. Qaiser said that the import of soya meal is against the interests of the local solvent plants.