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Rabat – Morocco’s Competition Council issued today a statement to clarify reasons behind the recent increase in cooking oil prices.
The council said it carried out a study at the request of the House of Representatives.
The study showed that the recent increase in the prices of cooking oil is due to two factors: the structure of the national market and the rise in raw material prices in the international market.
The council said Morocco has a structural shortcoming in the production of oilseeds as the country’s needs of oil raw material are almost completely imported with a rate of 98.7 % from the international market.
Locally produced oilseeds contribute to the sector only by 1.3%.
The statement added that only two companies are active in the extraction of raw vegetable oils from oilseeds: Lesieur Crystal with its Industrial Unit located in Casablanca, and oil factories in Souss Belhassan with an industrial unit located in Ain Taoujdat in the Fez-Meknes region.
Three parties and groups supply Morocco with crude vegetable oils, including the European Union, the council noted.
The EU is Morocco’s largest supplier of raw vegetable oils with 54%, followed by Argentina with 34%, and the US with 7%.
“The profit margins of companies operating in the cooking oil market remain reasonable and range between 4 and 5 %,” the statement said.
Refining of national crude vegetable oils is highly competitive due to Morocco’s weak imports of refined oils.
Morocco’s production of cooking oil is distributed in three regions: Casablanca-Settat with a share of 62%, Souss-Massa (23%), and Fez Meknes (15%).
The recent increase in oil prices stems from ongoing disruptions in the global supply chain, the council concluded. “The severity of the recent increases in the prices of raw materials increased as a result of the increase in the costs of shipping and transporting goods at the international level,” it said.
