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Edible oil prices fall

By Hao Zhou (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2008-09-09 15:52

At a time when Chinese people are still immersed in the joy of the Olympic Games, the whole-sale prices of cooking oils have been falling since the end of last month, which is good news for the upcoming Mid-autumn Festival.

Since August 25, right after the end of the Beijing Olympics, cooking oil prices have dropped nationwide, according to Xinhua's monitoring system over the prices of agricultural products. The prices of rapeseed oil and soybean oil declined by 0.57 percent and 1.32 percent respectively on average, compared with prices during Olympic Games.

In some cities, the cost of oil plunged almost 10 percent. Experts attributed the price drop of to the general drop in soybean prices on the international markets. China annually consumes more than 23 million tons of edible oils, of which soybean oil accounts for about 40 percent.

There are over 40 million tons of soybeans in demand for cooking oil in China, but China only produces 5 million tons, while the other 90 percent of soybeans come from imports.

In the middle of August, China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Import & Export Corporation (COFCO), the country's largest agricultural produce company, took the lead in lowering the prices of its oil brands by nearly 10 percent, which triggered this round of price cuts in the domestic cooking oil market.

Chen Gang, the general manager of COFCO Food Marketing Services Co Ltd, said the price of bulk cooking oils has fallen to its current 9,600 yuan ($1,404) per ton from a high of 16,000 yuan in March this year. Meanwhile, the retail price of a 5-liter barrel of cooking oil stays at around 55 yuan ($8.04), about the same as at the end of last year.

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