The domestic demand for pepper is slowly picking up, as is evident from the increased buying by Tamil Nadu’s dealers.

Gudalur and Erode dealers have shown some interest for the commodity from Wayanad, Idukki and Karnataka and this has led to a good business on Tuesday. Buyers have covered the entire available quantity at the prices quoted by sellers and this has resulted in a business of 25 tonnes in Kochi terminal market, said Kishore Shamji of Kishor Spices.

However, the prices remained steady at ₹305/kg for ungarbled varieties.

According to Shamji, there are more buyers than sellers and several markets are opening up slowly in Rajasthan, Gujarat and some areas of Maharashtra due to a surge in industrial demand. If this scenario continues, the prices may witness an upward trend.

In the international market, the other origin of pepper except Sri Lanka are showing some firmer trends. Since harvesting for the main crop is round the corner in Sri Lanka, there appears to be a pressure building up for sellers to come forward. This is a good sign for Indian extraction industries, who used to buy from Vietnam, to shift to Sri Lankan pepper that has more than 6 per cent piperine content as against the 4-4.5 per cent in the Vietnamese spice.

However, Indian farmers have requested the Commerce Ministry, DGFT not to issue any import license for pepper under Indo-Sri Lankan FTA duty free at minimum import price since all MIP norms were violated last year, he said.

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