diff --git a/sklearn/datasets/_svmlight_format_fast.pyx b/sklearn/datasets/_svmlight_format_fast.pyx
index 12d222f8cf581..bf5554714c199 100644
--- a/sklearn/datasets/_svmlight_format_fast.pyx
+++ b/sklearn/datasets/_svmlight_format_fast.pyx
@@ -10,12 +10,9 @@ from cpython cimport array
 cimport cython
 from libc.string cimport strchr
 
-cimport numpy as np
 import numpy as np
 import scipy.sparse as sp
 
-np.import_array()
-
 
 cdef bytes COMMA = u','.encode('ascii')
 cdef bytes COLON = u':'.encode('ascii')