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INDIA: India’s import duty on crude sunflower oil will increase from zero to 5.5% from 1 April, Fastmarkets reported on 1 March.

The import duty increase was applicable on up to 2M tonnes of crude sunflower oil under the tariff rate quota (TRQ) allowance for the 2023/24 season, the report said. The TRQ is a volume of imports that can enter India at a specified or zero duty.

A similar decision was taken in January on crude soyabean oil, which also had a duty-free import quota of 2M tonnes for 2022/23 and 2023/24, Latestly news agency wrote on 1 March.

India was forecast to import 2.55M tonnes of sunflower oil from November 2022 to October 2023, up 33%, with total imports set to rise 6.4% to reach 15M tonnes, Fastmarkets said.

GERMANY: German chemical, fertiliser, crop protection and seed producer BASF will cut 2,600 jobs or about 2.3% of its global workforce as it battles high production costs, Reuters reported on 24 February.

The job losses are part of plans to cut annual non-production costs in Europe by €500M and annual fixed production costs by €200M.

“At the heart of BASF's soaring costs are European natural gas prices which rocketed last year after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine,” Reuters wrote.

Several production lines would be closed at BASF’s largest chemical complex at Ludwigshafen, including one of two plants producing ammonia, used to make nitrate fertilisers.

BASF also produces surfactants for personal care, cosmetics, cleaning and technical applications, including palm- and palm kernel oil-based fractions, oleochemical derivatives and vegetable oil esters.