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The humble ‘dal’ has sent pulses racing in Myanmar and India.
Trouble started two weeks ago when India imposed import restrictions on tur (pigeon pea), urad (black bean) and moong (green gram) to avert a price crash.
Pulses acreage rises Thanks to last year’s high prices, farmers turned to pulses and India’s acreage rose a whopping 30 per cent above target and this pushed market rates way below the minimum support price. As the agri-corporate lobby cried for protection, the Government came out with a 200,000-tonne import cap on tur and 300,000-tonne quota for urad and moong.
This hit Myanmar hard. India is the South-East Asian nation’s No 1 market for pulses.
Tur, urad and moong account for nearly 84 per cent of Myanmar’s total exports to India.
And, encouraged by last year’s high prices, that nation’s farm community, too, had gone in for pulses in a big way. So, even as pulses price stabilised in India, it fell in Myanmar. According to Rajesh Kumar, a Yangon-based Indian-origin exporter, prices are down $100-150 a tonne for all three varieties.
Price crash The price crash has triggered a panic in Myanmar.
“Supply chain at risk as Indian government imposes restrictions on Myanmar beans,” screamed Myanmar Times on August 24.
To address Mynamar’s concerns, India, through an August 30 release by the Embassy in Yangon, said the restrictions would not apply to contracts for which advance payments were made before August 5.
Interestingly, the release mentioned that in 2016 Delhi wanted Yangon to enter into a “long-term G2G arrangement” for supply of pulses to India.
“For various reasons, the Myanmar government was not able to respond positively to this offer,” it added.
One reason, according to some sources, is that traders in Myanmar are not keen to promise prices, to take dual benefit of high price and assured quantity.
Another reason, according to Rajesh Kumar, is India’s insistence on LC-based trading while tradersprefer cash deals due to lack of banking facility. But Kumar says LCs can be opened through Singapore.
With Prime Minister Narendra Modi heading to Myanmar next week, will the two nations cook up an amicable solution?
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