Domestic dry ginger market became heavily bullish as demand surpassed supply by a huge margin in the last few weeks. Price of best quality ginger rose to Rs 14,000 a quintal as the market witnessed shortage of quality ginger.
The steep rise in price affected the export of the spice badly since the Indian ginger is priced double as that of China, which is one of the largest exporters of ginger.
The output of ginger getting thinner is being considered as the main reason for the sharp rise in prices. The annual production of dry ginger in Kerala dropped to 4,000-5,000 tonnes from around 15,000 tonnes a few years back. Also, with the production season of dry ginger already over, the stock left with the farmers and stockists is too low to match up with the increasing demand.
Consequently, price of ginger shot up by 40 per cent to the range of Rs 13,000-14,000 from Rs 8,000-8,500 in January, when production was at its peak.