mumbai feb 14 reuters  indias palm oil imports in january plunged 29 from a year earlier as a rally in tropical oil prices to a record high prompted refiners to increase buying of rival soyoil and sunflower oil a leading trade body said on monday lower purchases by the worlds top edible oil importer could cap the rally in palm prices  but may support us soyoil futures and sunflower oil from the black sea region india imported 553084 tonnes of palm oil in january compared with 780741 tonnes a year earlier and 565943 tonnes in december 2021 the mumbaibased solvent extractors association of india sea said in a statement the countrys imports of soyoil surged 341 from a year ago to 391158 tonnes last month while sunflower oil purchases jumped 50 to 307684 tonnes the trade body said in january crude palm oil cpo was being offered at around 1510 a tonne including cost insurance and freight cif in india compared with 1506 for crude soybean oil and 1475 for crude sunflower oil the sea said a year ago cpo was trading at a 74 pertonne discount to soyoil and 272 discount to sunflower oil even in february combined imports of soyoil and sunflower oil are likely to be more than palm oil said a mumbaibased dealer with a global trading firm palm oil imports could recover a bit from march as the government has cut the agriculture infrastructure and development cess aidc on cpo imports to 5 from 75 the dealer said read more mindful of an electorate that is highly sensitive to food price inflation the government in the past few months has tried to rein in domestic prices by reducing import taxes imposing stockpile limits and suspending futures trading in edible oils and oilseeds read more india imports palm oil mainly from top producers indonesia and malaysia while other oils such as soy and sunflower come from argentina brazil ukraine and russia