India’s major spices are seeing their prices move southwards since April with the narrowing of demand from overseas buyers coupled with good arrivals in the domestic markets. The April to June period is the traditional slack season for nearly all the spices.

Among the most actively traded spices, pepper is the only spice witnessing a marginal fall in prices - 1.04 per cent on a month-on-month comparison, while turmeric has been witnessing the most significant price drop at over 13 per cent in less than a month, despite shining for most part of 2010, Angel Commodities Broking Senior Research Analyst Nalini Rao said in a report here.

The king of spices, black pepper, has been seeing a shift in demand from Indian markets to cheaper destinations such as Vietnam and Indonesia, depressing prices in the domestic markets.

Although pepper prices in the country have declined, the fall has been marginal with the spot prices easing by a mere 1.04 per cent and futures by 0.50 per cent in the last one month, with farmers withholding stocks from entering the markets at lower price.

Moreover, according to various market sources the domestic pepper production this season would be much lower at 42,000 tonnes than the Spices Board projected 48,000 tonnes, Rao said.

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