Comments
Fruit and vegetable exporters in Kerala are knocking on the doors of the Union Government seeking its help in getting Saudi Arabia to lift a ban on imports from India.
The ban came in May last year following the outbreak of the Nipah virus, forcing all the gulf nations to impose restrictions on fruits and vegetable exports from Kerala. Though all the GCC countries lifted the ban later, Saudi Arabia is still continuing with it.
“We have requested the government to take measures to amicably resolve the issue through bilateral discussions as Saudi Arabia is one of the major export market for fruits and vegetables from Kerala”, PE Ashraf Ali of Pomona Exports, Kozhikode told BusinessLine . The presence of a large floating population ensures a good volume of business in the Saudi market especially through the three airports in Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah, he said.
Big market
Kerala, according to him, ships around 150 tonnes of fruits, including bananas and pineapple, as well as vegetables, on a daily basis to gulf countries from the Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram airports. Of this, 30-40 tonnes are despatched to Saudi Arabia alone and the value wise figure would be $64,000 per day. ($1,600 per tonne).
As the mango season is about to start in Kerala, exporters are looking at a favourable decision from the Saudi Arabian authorities to cash in. “We are expecting good business from mango exports this season, thanks to a good monsoon,” Ali said.
The present restrictions have forced many exporters to move their consignments either to Coimbatore or Bengaluru by road to meet their export obligations, which translated into additional transportation expenses at the rate of ₹20-25/kg.
The ban was imposed on May 28, impacting shipments from the State. From July, several Gulf countries started lifting the ban and the last one was Bahrain.
Intervention sought
Since Saudi Arabia has not lifted the ban, V Venugopal, president of the Cochin Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that immediate intervention by the government is the need of the hour as farmers, exporters and clearing and forwarding agents have been badly hit.
Farmers who used to get good prices have to depend on the domestic market, which does not fetch them good value in terms of monetary gains, he added.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.