NEW DELHI, Sept 14 (Reuters) - India's refined palm oil imports dropped about a third in August, marking a third successive monthly fall, as the world's top vegetable oil buyer increased its import duty to cut cheap supplies from top producer Indonesia, a trade body said.
Imports of refined palm oil fell to 79,486 tonnes from 112,611 tonnes in July, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) said in a statement on Friday, slightly lower than the average of a Reuters poll.
Purchases of refined palm oil have been falling since June due to expectations that India would raise its import duty to protect local processors who repeatedly petitioned the government for an increase in the levy.
Conceding to processors' demand, the government raised the import duty from Aug. 1.
"The duty hike will check excessive refined palmolein imports in coming months," said B.V. Mehta, executive director of the SEA.
Refined palm oil imports surged about 72 percent to 1.4 million tonnes in the first ten months of the season beginning November after Indonesia changed its export tax structure in October 2011 to support its own refining industry.
India imports mainly palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia. It also imports a small quantity of soyoil from Brazil and Argentina.
Total palm oil imports rose about 15 percent to 702,611 tonnes but soyoil purchases fell 29.3 percent to 110,758 tonnes. Sunflower oil imports dropped by about 14 percent to 68,900 tonnes in August.
Total vegetable oil imports, including small amounts of non-edible oils, rose 3.1 percent to 897,018 tonnes from July.
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