Nepal Duty-Free Oil Exports Jump 113%, Reshaping India's Import Bill

India's edible oil imports rose 3% to 166.51 lakh tonnes in the 2025–26 fiscal year, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) reported on Tuesday. The headline gain of 4.69 lakh tonnes over the prior year's 161.82 lakh tonnes came entirely from one origin. Nepal, under the zero-duty access of the South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), shipped 7.36 lakh tonnes of edible oils to India in calendar 2026 – more than double the 3.45 lakh tonnes a year earlier. SEA said that without the SAFTA arrangement, total imports would have fallen short of the previous year's level despite rising domestic demand. The mechanism behind the shift carries direct implications for domestic refiners, competing origins, and policy risk.

The Nepal Volume Jump: 113% Growth in One Year

Nepal's refined soybean oil made up the bulk of the duty-free shipments. Smaller volumes of sunflower oil, RBD Palmolein, and rapeseed oil also moved through the corridor. The jump from 3.45 lakh tonnes to 7.36 lakh tonnes in one calendar year is not a statistical blip. It represents an incremental 3.91 lakh tonnes that displaced imports from other sources. SEA directly linked the trend to SAFTA preference: