The largest component is palm oil, which arrives from Southeast Asia, primarily Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand; soybean oil makes its way from South American countries like Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, and in smaller quantities from Russia and West Asia; next in the trade basket is sunflower oil, the large majority of which comes from Ukraine and Russia.

A variety of palm, soybean, sunflower, coconut, olive, jojoba, and mustard oil are supplied to India by numerous countries.

From 2009 to 2021, Ukraine exported more sunflower oil to India than it did to any other country, and by quite a large margin. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Ukraine’s total exports of sunflower oil fell more than 20 percent the following year. More importantly, Ukraine’s exports to India fell dramatically from 1.5 million tons in 2021 to 633,623 tons in 2022 and only 374,619 tons in 2023. India was forced to look elsewhere to meet its copious demand for sunflower oil. Enter Argentina.

A regular supplier of soybean oil to India, Argentina exported most of its sunflower oil to Latin American countries, particularly to neighbours—Chile and Brazil. In 2018, only 14 percent of Argentina’s sunflower oil made its way to India, with the large majority exported to Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru. In 2022, after the Ukraine crisis started, Argentina exported 405,573 tons of sunflower oil to India, about 78 percent of its global exports of 519,900 tons; in 2023, these exports increased to 542,366 tons.[1https://www.trademap.org/

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/india-argentina-an-example-in-economic-diplomacy