Cashew kernel exports rise 16% in 3 quarters

After witnessing stagnation over the last year, India’s cashewkernel exports are set to bounce back into growth trajectory. For the first nine months of the current fiscal ended December 2013, the country has registered a growth of 16% to 90,244 metric tons as against 77,869 metric tons exported in the corresponding period last year.
In value terms, Indian exporters earned Rs 3,764 crore in the first three quarters ended December 2013, showing a year on year growth of 24.2% over Rs 3,031 crore earned between April and December 2012.
Going by the current trends in exports, the country is likely to close the current fiscal with second all time high export figures. Till now, India’s highest cashew kernel exports stood at 131,000 metric tons valued at Rs 4,390 crore in 2011-12. In 2012-13, India’s exports slipped to 100,105 metric tons valued at Rs 4,046 crore.
“Over the last five years we have seen cashew kernel exports stagnating at little over 100,000 metric tons except for one year. This year, we have seen a significant change in terms of import of raw cashew nuts as well as export of kernels. At the same time, there has been no increase in kernel imports. This shows that we have beaten the trend of stagnation and headed towards reaching the all time high exports,” G Giridhar Prabhu, managing director of Achal Cashews, a Mangalore-based export house, said.
The healthy trend this year is that the import of raw cashew nuts came down significantly by 10% to 662,795 metric tons between April and December 2013 compared to the same period last year, he said adding that the average cost of imports going down by 23% to Rs 616 crore as against Rs 799 crore with the unit value of Rs 55.83 as against Rs 59.29 per kg.
Another important contributing factor is the rise in unit value realization. The exporters have seen 7.1% rise in unit value at Rs 417.11 per kg during the nine month period as against Rs 389.30 per kg in the year ago period. In the month of December alone, the unit value has increased by 27% to Rs 448 per kg as against 352.81 per kg in year ago period.
“Added to this, the rupee depreciation has contributed significantly to the export earnings this year. The average exchange rate has gone up to Rs 62 per dollar compared to Rs 54 per dollar in the previous year. Another contributing factor could be due to a small decline in the domestic consumption,” Prabhu said.
Sasi Varma, Executive Director and Secretary, Cashew Export Promotion Council of India (CEPCI) said continued economic slowdown in Europe and the US prompted the Indian exporters to diversify into other markets like Japan, West Asian countries such as Saudi Arabia, Dubai among others.
“Japan has emerged as the new growth market for Indian cashew kernels. It accounts for 7% of the country’s total exports. If the current export demand sustains over the fourth quarter this year, we could see India’s kernel exports touching the level of 115,000 tonnes,” Varma said.

Business Standard