The cloves market in the country is currently steady at between Rs 550 and Rs 680 a kg with indications that any rise in the arrivals of the new crop, expected later this month, might steer the prices towards the south, according to market sources.

Prices in the international market are likely to be in the range of $8,800 and $9,300 a tonne.

The new Sri Lanka crop is expected to arrive next month while the crop in Madagascar, Comoros and Zanzibar are in full swing. Now Madagascar new crop is sold at $9,000 a tonne while that of Comoros at $8,500 a tonne and Colombo crop expected next week is likely to be at $7,000 a tonne.

“New imports into India might cost Rs 550-650 a kg”, they claimed. According to them, “now new crops are coming every two months, Indonesian new crop will start from Feb -Mar and hence the cloves markets are expected to be stable at present with the possibility of easing in March next”.

Prices for cloves of different origins in the domestic markets are Rs 550 for Colombo, Rs 650 for Madagascar, Rs 660 for Zanzibar, they said.

Reduction in duty recently for imports from Indonesia and Brazil also to 7 per cent would aid the price fall further, they said.

A section of trade has made projections for the new crop as Madagascar -15,000 tonnes; Brazil – 6,000 tonnes, Zanzibar 3,000 tonnes, Colombo 6,000 tonnes. According to these projections, there is a likely mismatch in demand and supply with the latter outstripping the former, they claimed.

The group has put the total world production at 74,000 tonnes against a world consumption demand of 1,28,000 tonnes, they said.

Indian production of cloves continued to remain at around 1,500 tonnes as against a national demand of over 15,000 tonnes.India imported 12,175 tonnes of cloves valued at Rs 440.82 crore in the fiscal, 2011-12 as against 7,000 tonnes valued at Rs 153.37 crore in 2010-11, according to official sources.

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