India's palm oil imports jumped 51% in January from a month earlier to their highest in four months, as a wider discount to rival soyoil encouraged refiners to step up purchases of the tropical oil while cutting soyoil imports to a 19-month low.
Higher palm oil imports by India, the world's largest buyer of vegetable oils, could help reduce inventories in top producers Indonesia and Malaysia, supporting benchmark Malaysian palm oil futures while pressuring U.S. soyoil futures .
India imported 766,384 metric tons of palm oil last month, the highest since September 2025, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) said on Friday.
Imports of soyoil declined more than 44% to 278,888 tons, the lowest since June 2024, and sunflower oil imports fell 23.8% to 266,575 tons, the industry trade body said.
India's total edible oil imports in January fell 3.7% from a month earlier to 1.31 million tons due to lower imports of soyoil and sunflower oil, the data showed.
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