Cashew exports come down as subsidy ends

Cashew kernels and cashewnut shell liquid export suffered in the first half of the current financial year ended September 2005, though a marginal increase in value realisation was witnessed.

In the April-September of this year total cashew kernels export dropped to 59,627 tonne from 61,724 tonne in the same period last year. Total value realisation was Rs 1,343.27 crore, which was Rs 1,240.47 crore last year.

In the month of September alone, exports dropped by 1,988 tonne, to 6,888 tonne. Earnings decreased to Rs 151.64 crore from Rs 195.81 crore in September 2004.

According to experts, with the stoppage of 5 per cent export subsidy exporters preferred to park their products in the domestic market rather than sending it abroad. The subsidy, which had been announced as per Vishesh Krishi Upaj Yojana (VKUY), had given a big boost to exports in 2004-05. 
 

EXPORT TO TOP TEN COUNTRIES
Countries	2003-04		2004-05
	Qty (Tonne)	Value (Rs cr)	Qty (Tonne)	Value (Rs cr)
U S A	48,504	881.55	61,546	1288.49
Netherlands	12,237	215.03	15,693	345.67
U K	5,392	95.61	7,108	158.34
U A E	6,239	102.42	6,690	148.23
Japan	5,522	101.95	5,047	111.21
France	2,444	43.61	3,329	66.49
Spain	2,198	41.11	2,870	64.80
Saudi Arabia	2,011	32.95	2,998	61.55
Russia	1,413	22.09	2,331	43.41
Germany	1,574	26.11	1,966	42.39
Source: D.G.C.I & S

The scheme though was limited for a period from January 4, 2005-April 26, 2005. Exporters said that the subsidy period coming to an end, along with stiff competition from Vietnam, had affected exports adversely in the current fiscal and total exports would be lower than last year. The marginal increase in export earnings though was due increase in average unit value at Rs 220.

During the April-September quarter, 3,484 tonne of cashewnut shell liquid, valued at Rs 3.58 crore, was exported as against 5,045 tonne, valued at Rs 5.25 crore, in the same period last year.

The current trend in cashew export is just the reverse of 2004-05 in which India had achieved record exports at 1,26,667 tonne valued at Rs 2717.15 crore as against Rs 1,804.43 crore in 2003-04.

Among agricultural commodities exported from India cashew held second position in 2004-05, contributing 0.66 per cent of the total export earnings.

This was primarily owing to the set back faced by Vietnam, India's main opponent in the world market during that period. The higher average unit export price of Rs 213.89 a kg fetched in 2004-05 compared with Rs 178.96 in 2003-04, an increase of 19.5 per cent, also helped to achieve better export performance.

Poor performance on the export front had reflected in import of raw cashew nut during April-Septmeber. Total import was 3,43,844 tonne, valued at Rs 1,355.51 crore as against 3,60,788 tonne valued at Rs 1,208.22 crore in the same period in 2004.

September saw some serious setback as only 36,891 tonne was imported compared with 81,023 tonne in September 2004.

During 2004-05 import had increased by 27.95 per cent in quantity and 55.84 per cent in value at 5,78,884 tonne and Rs 2,183.26 crore respectively compared with the previous year. The average import price increased to Rs 38.7 per kg during the last quarter of this year which was Rs 37.71 in 2004-05 and Rs 30.97 during 2003-04.