The Hindu Business Line : Pepper prices drop on selling pressure

PEPPER prices dropped during the week on selling pressure following the suspension of procurement by the Kerala government agency, the Kerala State Cooperative Marketing Federation (Marketfed).

Spot prices fell by Rs 200 a quintal during the week, while the futures from Rs 260 to Rs 395 a quintal.

MG 1 was sold on Saturday at Rs 6,600 a quintal as against Rs 6,800 on April 16, while ungarbled at Rs 6,200 as against Rs 6,400 a quintal.

The futures prices were May Rs 6,565 a quintal compared to Rs 6,960 on April 16 recording a drop of Rs 395. June Rs 6,588 (Rs 6,982); July Rs 6,412 (Rs 6,797); August Rs 6,980 (Rs 7,236); September Rs 7,079 (Rs 7,339); and October Rs 7,283 (Rs 7,601).

To add to the prevailing sentiment the NMCE's latest decision to resort to online trading in spot pepper is likely to result in selling pressure pushing the prices further down, market sources here claimed. According to them the National Multi Commodity Exchange has a stock of 4,500 tonne of pepper "for which it wanted to find an outlet. Any trading conducted for below 30 days, it is not a forward contract and considered as spot, according to FMC regulations", they claimed.

On the other hand, the domestic demand is mainly met by supplies from Karnataka where pepper is bought from the primary at Rs 58 a kg, they said.

Meanwhile, in the international market we continued to remain out-priced. Indian parity is at $1,550 a tonne while Vietnam, currently the only competitor for India, is offering at $1,450 a tonne. Indonesia, according to the sources, is expecting a crop 40 per cent less than that of the previous year while Malaysia is not a competitor now, they added.

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