Vijayawada: Centre urged to waive duty on soybean import

Vijayawada: The Soy Food Promotion and Welfare Association (SFPWA) expressed concern over the shortage of soybeans and appealed to the Central government to consider allowing the import of food specialty Non-GM soybeans from the USA on a "0" or minimum possible import duty.

They said that the present rate of 45 per cent basic duty which comes to 57 per cent after adding other applicable taxes is not commercially feasible to import soybeans for food processing purposes.

The SFPWA represents over 3,000 small, medium and large-scale units across the country that provides low-cost nutrition under the Nutrition Mission.

Vice-President of SFPWA Sumit Agarwal said in a statement here on Monday that the current production of soybeans in India is approximately 10.5 million metric tonnes but there are no specialty food beans grown in India. While all Indian beans are non-GM, they are also treated as commodity beans regardless of the end-use, be it in the food or feed industry. As a result, many Indian soy food processors are now forced to shut down.

Last year India imported about five lakh metric tonnes of duty-free soybeans from African countries to meet the growing demand of soybeans for crush purposes as the Indian soybean is way too expensive.

The SFPWA urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow the processing industry to import 50,000 tonnes of food specialty soybeans from the US duty free. SFPWA president K Sarat Chandra Kumar said food specialty soybeans are not grown in the country. Fortunately, there are Non-GM specialty food grade soybeans grown in the United States.