Commodity Online
NEW DELHI: Thanks to the export curbs imposed by the government to rein in prices during the festival season, onion exports nosedived by around 31 per cent till December 2007.

To add to the woes, now there is a congestion at ports as exporters rushed the commodity to the ports following the relaxation of curbs due to a fall in domestic onion prices.

About six lakh tonnes were exported till December and the final export figure for the entire fiscal is likely to be around eight lakh tonnes.

This would be a decline of 31 per cent from exports of 11.61 lakh tonnes in the previous year.

Officials said despite a substantial cut in minimum export price (MEP), exports over the next three months would not be more than two lakh tonnes due to congestion at ports.

Onion exports declined by 36 per cent to 5.97 lakh tonnes during April-December period of current fiscal as compared to 9.26 lakh tonnes in the year-ago period. India produces about 65 lakh tonnes of onion annually.

The move to raise the MEP during the festival season (due to high domestic prices) was the main factor for the decline in exports, traders said.

After the festival season, Nafed and 12 other agencies, which fix the export price every month, had drastically cut the MEP for most of the destinations to boost overseas sales.

The onion MEP for January shipments stands at $200 a tonne for most of the destinations such as Gulf countries. The MEP was $495 a tonne in October last year.

As a result of higher MEP, the exports in October and November were 23,785 tons and 30,714 tons respectively. The exports in the same period of the previous year were 88,389 tons and 1.08 lakh tonnes respectively.