FGV Signs MoU with Trimex to explore India palm oil market

Malaysia-headed palm oil industry major Felda Global Ventures Holdings Berhad (FGV) has announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Trimex Industries Pvt Ltd (Trimex), with the aim to explore the feasibility of supplying and distributing various palm oil products to penetrate India’s midstream and downstream market.

Trimex is a subsidiary of India’s Trimex Group, one of the region’s largest mineral and metal conglomerates involved in the business of mining and trading of industrial minerals with a logistical footprint in key ports in India.

– India is our biggest crude palm oil (CPO) and refined, bleached and deodorised (RBD) export market with a total of 600 000 tonnes annually. In-line with our market expansion strategy, we are looking at diversifying our product offerings to small and medium (SME) business and consumer markets. With this MoU we hope to explore the possibility of supplying and distributing FGV’s palm oil to India in partnership with strategic industry players such as the Trimex Group, said Dato’ Zakaria Arshad FGV’s Group President and Chief Executive Officer in a statement.

As the world’s largest importer of palm oil, India accounts for 10-12 percent share of global consumption. However, growth in production of domestic edible oil has not been able to keep pace with the growth of consumption and the gap continues to become wider as disposable income increases.

This gap is being met by the imports of edible oils for almost 55-65 percent of the total consumption during past five years. More than 14 million tonnes of edible oil was imported in 2015 with a ratio of 89 percent crude edible oil and 11 percent refined oil.

CPO is the largest edible oil imported by India at about 54 percent followed by soybean oil and sunflower oil contributing about 21 percent and 11 percent respectively.